


The Patron

by reitoei



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Age Difference, Angst, Homophobic Language, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:22:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 58,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22045555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reitoei/pseuds/reitoei
Summary: Harry reaches the age where he must take on a Patron, someone who will help him navigate wizarding society. Never one to do things by halves, he chooses Severus Snape--and what he gets is much more than a mentorship.Severus has always been inexorably drawn into Potter's orbit. When he accepts a Patronage to the boy he can no longer ignore the pull of their often fraught relationship. But his post-war recovery has not been smooth, and Potter is a complication he fears.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 128
Kudos: 992





	1. Severus

**Author's Note:**

> This is the slow burn post-war romance I've often wanted to write for this ship. The fic is written in dual POV as I have a deep affinity for Severus (naturally, as he's an angst magnet) but also for Harry and his journey of growing up after saving the world. And there is plot, because I can't help myself.
> 
> Thanks to idiom as always for inspiring me to write, and thanks to my fantastic betas from the subreddit /r/HPSlashFic. Any mistakes that remain are my own.

Severus could have retired after the war. Nobody would have faulted him for taking an extended leave of absence from the wizarding community—perhaps in some remote Siberian village—until the world had forgotten the name ‘Snape’ and everything it stood for. But though the idea held a great deal of appeal he found himself convinced to stay twice over: by Minerva, but also by Hermione Granger.

From Minerva it was something of a surprise. For years they shared a rivalry which straddled the line between uneasy truce and genuine dislike. There had been a point after Albus’s death when Severus wondered if she would denounce him for good. She could easily decide his actions were irredeemable—he had done things for the Dark Lord that left a stain on his very soul, and Minerva was no Albus to give second and third and fourth chances. It seemed, however, that she had her own ideas about what was best.

“What will you do, Severus? Brew potions and angst about your own mortality?” she asked him scathingly. “At least stay at Hogwarts where you can do some good. Impose your one-note villainy on the next generation of hapless children—Merlin knows they don’t deserve it, but perhaps you can bung some knowledge into them at the same time.”

“Surely you can’t be that hard up for teaching staff,” he muttered, but she ignored him.

It would have been easier for her to let him go. In fact, he had almost made up his mind by that point that nothing would suit him more than to languish in isolation for the next few decades. Wizarding Britain still seemed confused about his fame—or infamy—and individuals he met were split down the middle about whether to toady up or malign him. At the time of his extended stay at St Mungo’s directly after the war Minerva was only one of dozens of visitors, not all of whom came to wish him well.

But for whatever reason she had it in her head that it would be better—for whom, he couldn’t imagine—if he stayed at Hogwarts. So he capitulated.

What he didn’t tell her was that he had another motive for staying. While in hospital he’d had a number of former students visit out of some misguided sense of obligation: Draco, Zabini, a few Ravenclaws. And most notably, Hermione Granger.

Fresh off the plane from Australia, she arrived shortly after he woke up. She wore Muggle clothes and had trimmed her hair into a tame pouf since the end of the war, and she had put on red lipstick—the combined effect made her look distressingly adult. Upon seeing him from the doorway she dropped her bag and flew to his side, and for an awful moment he thought she would embrace him. He was not physically or emotionally capable of such an expression. But, displaying an unusual amount of acuity, she grasped his hand awkwardly instead.

“Professor Snape! You look…” She trailed off. Severus was well aware that he looked like someone who had just risen from the dead, and he let her falter with vindictive amusement.

“You look well,” she finished firmly. Minerva had said the same, and with the same resolve. As if saying it would make it so.

“No need to coddle me with platitudes.” He eyed her. Granger had ever been a thorn in his side, too smart for her own good but lacking the sense to go along with it. But she had clearly not escaped the war unscathed. There was a haunted look in her eye he recognized.

“We were all so happy to hear that you were alive.” She held his hand tighter and her chin wobbled a bit. Gallantly, she carried on. “After everything, and all the people who—”

She paused and sniffled a bit.

“Sorry—the people we lost—”

At this point, to Severus’s horror, she collapsed beside his bed, dropped her head to the sheets and sobbed over his hand.

He grimaced. She might look like an adult but she was still painfully young. At eighteen, Severus had already been entrenched in the Dark Lord’s inner circle. He’d made more than a passing acquaintance with death and torture, but he’d chosen his path willingly. Granger and her cohort had war thrust upon them.

Slowly he pushed himself into a sitting position and patted her shoulder with his free hand. His healing was progressing slowly and he had little strength—and generally he used what he had to get up and visit the washroom with dignity so that he didn’t have to resort to the bedpan—but he was compelled to comfort her. He had spent a long time disallowing himself even the simplest of kind, physical gestures between two people. But although she was not even the first person today to come to hold his hand in sympathy, she was the first of them besides Draco for whom he’d felt any answering pang of emotion.

She—and the rest of the children—deserved as much as him, if not more, to lie in a hospital bed for a year and recover from the poison of war that had struck them through.

At his touch she sobbed more heavily. He waited. When she finished, she wiped her face ungracefully in his sheets and stood on wobbly legs.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized again. She smoothed down her skirt and dabbed at her eyes. Severus waited until she had composed herself.

“Would you help me lie down again, please,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, of course!”

She took his hand again and he directed her to place the other hand on his back so that he could lower himself with minimal use of his atrophied muscles. Once on task she was efficient and matter-of-fact as always, and, thankfully, did not burst into tears again. When he was propped up against his customary brace of pillows she released him and straightened.

“You know, Harry wants to come visit you,” she said at last.

There it was. Everything came around to Harry Potter. Bitterness rose in his throat.

“Yet I don’t see Mr. Potter here,” he said.

“No. I came alone this time. I heard you were awake and I had to see you straight away.” She had to. A funny way of saying it. “Harry was busy—he’s always very busy these days. Everyone wants to see him, or interview him, or get his opinion.” She sighed, a short, sharp exhalation. “A lot of them wouldn’t even have spoken to him during the war. He keeps getting letters from Rita Skeeter! The nerve of that horrid woman…”

Severus kept quiet. He could pretend he was thoughtfully digesting Granger’s words, but in reality the whole thing had been tiring so far and he was ready for a nap.

“Anyway, that’s not what I’m trying to say,” she went on. “He wants to apologize, so I’m certain he’ll come.”

At this, Severus couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Whatever does he want to apologize for?”

“You know how he is. Probably for not killing You-Know-Who before you almost died or some malarkey. Harry always needs something to feel guilty over.”

That made him laugh, and he began coughing, a terrible, deep-lunged cough which alarmed Granger. She called for a medi-witch and the woman promptly chased her away.

“He needs rest, not endless visitors!” the medi-witch exclaimed.

Granger returned twice more before the hospital discharged him to the Prince house, and each time grew more uncomfortable than the last. Potter didn’t ever manifest. Severus couldn’t say he was disappointed, exactly. There was no love lost between them even now. But he was curious.

Granger had suggested he felt guilty. Why had he never come to dispel his guilt? It wouldn’t take much—one face-to-face meeting and Severus would be happy to relieve him of the notion that he played so important a part as to be responsible for every death or near-death of the war.

Then, after one full year of constant supervision at the hospital, Severus had at last been free to return to the hated house of his childhood. After only a week memory drove him to madness and he began making plans to leave. Cokeworth would be the end of him if he stayed. At least in another village in another country he could start over.

Before he could flee, however, Minerva called on him a second time and offered him his old place at Hogwarts as Potions professor. The thought came to him inevitably of Potter, of all of them, coming around in this redemptive circle but doomed to repeat their mistakes as they swung out wildly once more from their place of origin. Where would this circle lead him?

As a man who had changed his own fate many times, Severus didn’t believe in a pre-destined path. Still, a part of him sensed that some business hung unfinished in the air. He could strike out on his own, leaving behind the childish notions of home and reconciliation, or he could stay in the shadow of Hogwarts and let the threads of possibility unspool before him.

In the end, he chose the latter. He would wait and see if the circle would close.

He returned to Hogwarts, locked the gates on the house at Spinner’s End, and settled in to watch the wizarding world rise from the ashes of the war.

Three years later, his wait ended.

It was the end of Easter break and the halls were once more full of students. Severus suppressed the gladdening of his heart, the old, wizened thing. Sentimentality was for fools. He would never be fond of students, though he found the occasional one tolerable. They were too nervy to come up with anything clever to say but never sufficiently cowed to listen. Children were courageous for the wrong reasons.

 _Although some never get there at any age,_ he thought darkly.

He was marking papers leftover from the holiday assignment when he heard a pair of voices in the hallway, one of them Minerva, her Scottish brogue raised in frustration.

"You can't turn every situation into something that suits you," she was saying. "Some things are sacred. There's nothing wrong with it, for that matter—it's a good, strong tradition."

"It's bullshit," said the second person, and the hairs on Severus’s arms lifted. The second voice belonged to Harry Potter. Deeper since last time Severus had spoken to him—Merlin, what an age ago—but recognizably his. "I'm sick of the courtship. I’m sick of the whole thing. I feel like a piece of meat at the market."

"That's not what it's meant to be," Minerva said, her tone gentling.

"For everyone else, maybe!" There was that familiar, petulant whine. Some things, at least, didn’t change.

Severus realized they were coming closer and tensed. He'd put the Potter Thing behind him since returning to Hogwarts. Once he fell into the routine of teaching he wondered what madness had driven him to consider leaving in the first place. He set aside his strange thoughts about redemption and circular fate. They were thoughts of a tired, sick man. Once out from under the heavy thumb of Nagini’s poison he found them foolish. Now, however, he realized that he wasn’t ready to see Potter at all. _He_ was the guilty one, with so many things to atone for, and he wasn’t prepared to stare his guilt in the face.

He had a bare moment to register the thought before Potter swept round the corner and into his office, not pausing to knock, with Minerva striding in his wake. Severus didn’t even have time to pretend to be marking his paper before those piercing green eyes caught his. Both of them froze.

“Harry, please reconsider,” Minerva said.

“No!” He rounded on her, shaken out of his stupor. “Everyone’s telling me it’s my choice. Well, I’ve bloody well made a choice!”

“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” Severus said, and he was gratified to see Potter’s head whip around.

“Snape,” he blurted. “I’d like you to be my Patron.”


	2. Harry

On Harry’s side, it went something like this.

“What is this?” Harry strode into the sitting room of the tiny flat he shared with Ron, brandishing a scroll of fine quality paper. He unrolled it partway. “‘ _Dear Mr. Potter, I am writing to you to inform you of my official intent to pursue your Patronage. I cannot tell you what an honour it would be_ …’”

“Ugh, mate.” Ron lifted his head from the kitchen table to chug his coffee. “It’s six in the morning.”

“Can you keep it down?” Hermione whimpered from the couch, clutching her head.

“Well, maybe if you two hadn’t drunk so much this wouldn’t be a problem,” Harry told them, lowering the paper. “You want a Pepper-Up?”

“No, that’ll just make me steam out the ears _and_ I’ll still be sick,” she moaned.

“Come off it, you had just as much as both of us,” Ron said. “How come you didn’t get a hangover?”

“Superior genes,” Harry said.

They both turned to look at him, and then at each other.

“Draco,” said Hermione.

“It’s got to be Malfoy,” Ron agreed. “Come on, Harry, you don’t know what he’s giving you.”

“I just had him brew something a little stronger than usual,” Harry protested. “It’s safe. He’s really good and it’s not fair that they’re keeping him out of the market.”

“He’s not allowed to file a patent because he’s _twenty one_.” Hermione roused herself from the couch, stirred by the subject she was most enthusiastic about these days: wizarding law. “It’s for good reason. Your magic doesn’t stabilize until your mid-twenties. He has no idea what’s causing the effects of the potion—it could be the ingredients or just his errant magical energies. The results are totally unpredictable.”

“But they work,” said Harry.

“They work on you. If I took one I’d probably drop dead on the spot,” Ron grumbled. “I still think it’s weird you two call him _Draco_.”

“He’s in practically all of my classes,” Hermione said. “It would be weird not to.”

Harry shrugged. “He’s not so bad. He’s a little snotty, but he’s grown up a bit. Can we get back to the subject at hand, please? Some creep sent me a letter and it got through the filter somehow.”

‘The filter’ was a spell that Hermione had designed to assess the relevance, safety, and usefulness of the enormous amount of mail that Harry got. All other mail got dropped into the bin in the alley outside his window, and periodically the bin would shut and incinerate all the contents. For Harry, it meant he didn’t have to screen every letter himself—an exhausting task, and he would have more than likely ended up just tossing everything that was sent to him. For Ron, it meant he wasn’t woken by stray Howlers at four in the morning. A win for everyone, really.

Except when it didn’t work properly.

“Hermione, can you recalibrate the spell? This is the third one of these I’ve gotten this week.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Sure, let me see it.”

He handed it over. Hermione perused it briefly and handed it back. “Oh, this isn’t junk. It’s about your Patronage.”

“Yeah, mate, you don’t want to filter those out,” Ron said.

Harry sighed. “Am I expected to have a clue what that means?”

Hermione and Ron exchanged a second look across the room. He was glad Hermione was rooming on campus at the university because if he had to put up with the two of them doing that all the time he’d strangle them both.

“I always forget that you won’t know about these sorts of things,” Hermione said at last, apologetically. “It’s not exactly covered at Hogwarts.”

She sat up and patted the cushion next to her. Harry rolled up the paper and took a seat.

“Patronage is… a sort of magical mentorship,” she began. “A Patron’s job is to introduce you into adult wizarding society and all that entails. They’ll usually contribute to your continuing magical education and help to get your career started. There was a resurgence among the upper class a couple of centuries ago, when a Patronage was sort of equivalent to the coming of age parties you’d get in Muggle society. Since wizards live longer and—some could argue—mature more slowly, the Patronage typically starts at twenty one instead of thirteen.”

“So I’m supposed to be like a Victorian maiden?” Harry flopped back against the couch. “Is this because I don’t have parents?”

“No, anyone who’s at all interesting in wizarding society gets a Patron,” Ron said. “They pay for things and introduce you to people. It’s basically like having an older, wealthier friend. That’s what the Slug Club was all about—Slughorn was on the hunt for future Patronages.”

“Ugh.” Harry shuddered. “That feels a bit…commercial.”

“There’s more to it than Galleons. A Patron can teach you how to navigate the political sphere in your chosen field,” said Hermione. “Wizarding society is fairly insular, not sure if you’ve noticed, so it helps to have a foot in the door.”

“Oh yeah, I hadn’t noticed at all. What with the Statute of Secrecy and the hatred of Muggleborns,” Harry said.

“Yes, well, nowadays it’s become more popular to take a Muggleborn under your wing, so at least things are progressing.” She sniffed.

“Hang on.” Harry sat upright. He pointed at Hermione. “You two are the same age as me.”

“Yes, Harry, good observation,” Ron said around his toast, spraying crumbs.

“What I mean is… aren’t you getting these letters too?”

Hermione looked away immediately. “I, er, I may have been a bit proactive.”

“What!” Ron exclaimed. “You asked someone?”

“It’s not unheard of!” she insisted, slowly going red. “Some people find it flattering to be asked. If you already have someone in mind why wait?”

“Who?” he demanded.

Hermione mumbled something under her breath.

“Marjorie Durham?” Harry repeated.

“The head of the Division of Law and Policy? Merlin, why not go straight for the Minister for Magic!” Ron gaped at her.

“I thought it was better to be realistic about my ambitions for the time being,” she said. This time it was Harry and Ron who shared an incredulous look. “I’ve still got a year left of undergraduate at Oxford and four years of law school. I don’t want to focus too much on career when I haven’t finished my education. Marjorie supports that. And for the record, she was happy I asked. She’s from an old family but they’re not very wealthy, so they don’t have the opportunity to mentor often.”

“So what about you?” Harry asked Ron. The more Hermione described it the less comfortable he felt about the whole thing. He didn’t like the thought of a stranger trying to guide him through the upper echelons of society like he was some sort of pet—life had taught Harry that he was more likely to be used as a tool for someone else’s gain than anything.

“I’m not doing it,” Ron said. “It’s not for me. Can you imagine some aristocrat touting me around and trying to make me give a hoot about politics? Besides, with my luck I’d end up with someone like Neville’s gran as a Patron.”

“Well, I won’t be getting one either,” Harry said definitively. If Ron could do it so could he. “Should I just tell them to sod off, then?”

Ron made a face. Hermione made an identical face. Harry recognized it as the _‘Harry’s making questionable decisions’_ expression. He’d become well acquainted with it when he told everyone he wanted to turn down the contract with Puddlemere United.

He sighed. “What?”

“Maybe you’d better wait,” said Hermione.

“I don’t want a Patron,” he said.

“I thought you already had someone in mind, which is why I didn’t ask. But if you don’t… you’re going to get quite a few offers from some very interesting and influential people. It’ll look bad if you don’t at least make a show of speaking to some of them.”

“This is sounding more and more like something I don’t want to do,” said Harry. “Why would I talk to them if I’m just going to bypass the whole thing anyway?”

“What Hermione’s trying to say is that you shouldn’t bypass it,” said Ron. “It’s all well and good for me. I might be a war hero, but Weasleys are of middling stock. Besides, I’ve got the shop already. I don’t need career advice or mentorship. But you’ve got loads more opportunities. Someone with more experience might be able to help you sort through all the crap to find something you actually want to do.”

“Or help you get into Auror training,” Hermione pointed out.

“Which I don’t even know if I want,” Harry said.

“Well, what are you going to do if you want in? Just walk up to Head Auror Robards and ask him to waive the NEWT requirements?”

“Of course not!” Harry scowled. “That would be unfair to everyone who did take their NEWT’s.”

“Maybe a Patron can talk sense into you,” Ron remarked. Harry swiped at him and he ducked. “Just saying, mate.”

“Give it a try,” Hermione cajoled. “You might be surprised.”

“Fine.” Harry crumpled up the letter. “But I’m not owling this bloke back. He sounds insufferable.”

Hermione was right. The three owls were only been the beginning of a long and terrible campaign by what seemed like every middle-aged witch or wizard in London—and some not very middle-aged at all—to secure his Patronage. It was, Ron pointed out, a bit like a bachelor auction. Harry didn’t appreciate the comparison.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Hermione said, dropping the letter she’d been reading to the table to rub her temples. Her hair was wilted and she had deep bags under her eyes. Harry felt nearly as exhausted as she looked, even though she was the one holding up top marks in eight pre-law classes at Oxford. “I had no idea it was going to be this bad.”

“We should have put them into the filter,” Harry groaned, throwing a letter over his shoulder into the growing trash pile.

He’d begun by responding politely to every owl, but it quickly became clear that this wouldn’t be sustainable. First of all, as soon as word got out that he was actually considering offers the number of owls exploded tenfold. Second, the quality took a dramatic nosedive as everyone with two Galleons to rub together suddenly saw themselves as a viable Patron.

Ron and Hermione developed a ‘divide and conquer’ method which allowed them to screen out the most egregious offenders, for which he was deeply appreciative, but Hermione insisted he at least read the ones who seemed sincere. Of course, it was hard to tell a person’s character from a letter. Hermione gave a lot of people more benefit of the doubt than Harry would have.

“What about this fellow?” Ron handed one to him.

Harry wiped a bit of mustard from Ron’s sandwich off the parchment with his sleeve. It was from Ronald Horgan, manager for the Holyhead Harpies. He whistled. “Good catch.”

Ron grinned around a mouthful of corned beef. “Same name as me. He’s bound to be one of the good sort.”

Of the three of them Ron had proven to have the keenest eye for people Harry might actually want to meet. Not surprising, considering Harry was a bit of a misanthropic shut-in and Hermione’s gauge of social ability was predicated on whether or not the person in question would listen to her talk about magical law for more than ten minutes at once. Ron, on the other hand, had a proliferous social life.

Horgan went into the ‘will-call’ pile, as Harry thought of it. So far the list of people he would have to owl back was much larger than he would have liked, even the rejected hopefuls far outnumbered the potentials. Just the thought of having to exchange stilted pleasantries with so many strangers, all of whom wanted something of him, made him want to throw them all into the flaming bin and be done with it.

But he’d promised Hermione. More than that, this was the most interesting thing to happen to him since the war ended. The truth was even though the league was doing well and he was good at his sort-of-career as a minor league Seeker the whole thing felt hollow. All he’d wanted for eighteen years was a normal life, and now that he had one he didn’t know what to do with it. How could anything be normal after the war? How could everyone go about their lives?

For Harry, normalcy only made him feel more isolated. He still had night terrors that he didn’t tell Ron or Hermione about. He could hardly bring himself to visit Andromeda and Teddy at Number Twelve, or the Weasleys. He’d avoided Hogwarts for three years. He didn’t know what would be worse—to see everyone pretending that things were okay, or to see them struggling because things _weren’t_ okay.

At a certain point, without noticing, he’d stopped imagining a future at all. But here the future was with him still in it.

Maybe Ronald Horgan held the key to his problems. He sighed and threw away another letter from an over-enthusiastic witch who dotted her i’s with hearts.

To Harry’s disappointment Horgan turned out to be just as much a toady as any Ministry politician—and worse, he was the best of a bad lot.

“Mr. Potter!” Horgan greeted him at the door of the restaurant with a booming voice and a firm handshake. “So nice to meet you in person! I heard you’ve been doing good things with the Dulwich Dragons.”

“Nice to meet you too, sir.”Harry followed him in. The restaurant was a little more high profile than he liked, which he hadn’t realized until he arrived. “The Dragons are a great team. I’m happy for the opportunity.”

“Ah, so modest.” Horgan chuckled. “We all know it’s just a matter of time before you sign with Puddlemere United. Don’t you worry, a quick chat with their manager and I can hurry that along. No sense wasting your talent and name on the little guys, right?”

He led Harry to a table in the middle of the room. Harry spotted a few familiar faces that he recognized from the endless lineup of news scrums he’d attended after the war. They were journalists, and he was pretty sure they weren’t here for a nice dinner.

“I actually like the little guys,” Harry said, a bit coldly. “It’s been a good opportunity for growth and they respect my privacy.”

“Yes, yes, but you can’t stay there forever!” Horgan said. “Why, with your name you could go anywhere you like. A team would have to be nutters not to hire you on the spot, if not just for the publicity. Now, I have some ideas about that—”

“I’d rather get there on merit,” Harry interrupted him.

Horgan frowned as if puzzled by this. “Well, of course, but… and you’re a fantastic player, Harry, truly… but you mustn’t underestimate the value of knowing how to market yourself.”

It was all downhill after that.

Harry did his best not to lose his temper but he wasn’t sure Horgan even noticed he was fuming. Afterward they were mobbed on the steps of the restaurant by photographers. Horgan beamed and waved at them while Harry gritted his teeth and tried to duck out from under his arm.

The next day there was an article on the front page of the Daily Prophet titled ‘ _Horgan Woos Harry Potter Away From Small-Time Quidditch_ ’ and a picture of Horgan with his arm around Harry’s shoulder and Harry with a pained look on his face. He spotted it at the newsstand on his way back from Muggle London. He bought the paper just so he could throw it at Hermione when he got back to the flat.

“Ow,” she said. “What—?”

“Kick your boyfriend for me,” he said. “Horgan just wanted paparazzi pictures and his name on the front page. He had a load of bollocks about how I ought to use my fame to get the best major league contract.”

Hermione leaned down and fetched the paper off the floor. She sighed. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes! That’s it. I’m not doing this.” He sat down at the table heavily.

“Don’t write them all off, Harry. There might be someone in there who surprises you.” She patted his hand consolingly.

In spite of this Harry met with nine more potential Patrons, but contrary to Hermione’s optimism each made him want to gouge his eyes out more than the last one.

They all had very specific ideas about what Harry ought to do with his life. None of them had a clue who he was as a person, nor did they seem terribly invested in finding out. After the tenth fine dining experience in a restaurant full of peeping journalists—this one with a wealthy Pureblood aristocrat who seemed to regard Harry as some sort of personal project—he went out and got thoroughly sloshed.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea, but I can’t be arsed,” said Hermione, downing half of her pint in one go. “Final papers have been an absolute slaughter.”

“Don’t you have exams in two weeks to study for?” Ron shouted over the din.

“If the woman wants to drink, let her drink,” Harry said, hooking an arm over Ron’s shoulder. He was already deep into his pints. He’d arrived early and tried to drink Neville under the table, which was always a mistake. Neville had the constitution of a hippogriff. He was nearly as tall as Ron, twice as broad-shouldered, and worked outside all day hauling around bags of dirt and plants.

“Have you seen Neville?” Hermione asked. “I thought he said he was coming.”

“He faffed off with Luna when you two arrived,” Harry told her. “They’re going through that awful stage of the relationship where they can’t keep their hands off each other.”

Ron smirked. “As if you weren’t like that. Remember when mum caught you and Ginny in the garden shed at George and Angelina’s wedding?”

“Oy, don’t ruin the mood by bringing up my ex,” Harry said, tossing back the rest of his pint.

“She’s my sister, mate!”

“Yeah, and she dumped me.” He squeezed in next to them. “Let’s not talk about her. When are you and Hermione getting hitched?”

This was always effective at distracting Ron. As usual Hermione began to insist that she didn’t need a big proposal or a wedding, and that they were waiting until she graduated from Oxford—or perhaps after law school.

“Might be earlier,” Ron said cagily. Harry knew for a fact that he’d already bought a ring. Hermione blushed and went off again about ‘being sensible’, although Harry also knew she had a stack of Muggle wedding magazines in her bedside drawer in the dorms.

Ginny was the last topic Harry wanted to talk about when he was trying to drink his sorrows away. When she broke up with him they’d agreed to remain friends and perhaps try again some day, but Harry knew it wouldn’t work like that. Something about their relationship had been fundamentally broken during the war. He’d had experiences Ginny couldn’t understand and shouldn’t have to. Neither of them were the same people afterward, and it turned out that these new, different versions of themselves couldn’t meet in the middle.

“What about all this Patron stuff, Harry?” Ron interrupted Hermione in a bid to end his torture. “You’re giving up already? That Auror seemed nice—what was her name?”

“Melinda Myrnes,” Harry said, “and she was a full-fledged fan. She actually sent three letters—the one Hermione let through was the least crazy. She showed me her copies of the others. Might’ve been fine if I could overlook that, because we actually had a nice chat about her job, but…”

He shuddered. Ron made a sympathetic face.

“I’d have gone for it,” he said. “Can’t be that bad, right? That’s a ticket straight to your dream job.”

Harry dropped his head to the bar. “I just can’t,” he moaned.

“You’ll find the right person,” Hermione assured him. “It took Dumbledore years to find _his_ Patron. I read it in—”

“Hogwarts: A History,” Harry and Ron chorused. They knocked their glasses together.

“No,” Hermione said, bewildered. “In Dumbledore’s posthumous autobiography. It came out earlier this week.”

“Oh.” Harry wasn’t comforted. The whole world hadn’t been watching Dumbledore, waiting for him to mess up and pick the wrong person so that they could gossip about it.

“Everything I’ve read says that wizards with a lot of potential are hard to please,” said Hermione. “You have to be compatible as mentor and mentee not just personality-wise, but also in the realm and of magic. It’s not just a political match. Your Patron should help you bring your magic to maturity—you may fit best with someone who’s as strong or stronger than you.”

“I’m not that powerful, though,” Harry protested.

“You beat You-Know-Who!” Ron gaped at him.

“That wasn’t _me_ ,” said Harry. “I’ve told you all of this before. I had help—my mum and dad, Sirius, Remus, Dumbledore... even Draco. It was because of them that I came back at all.”

“Harry, going head-to-head against Voldemort—” Hermione looked around, but no one was paying them any attention in the Muggle pub. “—that was all you. And another thing—you’re the only other person I know of besides Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall, and Dumbledore himself who can do wandless magic. It’s no mistake that people came to _you_ to be taught defensive magic in seventh year. You probably need a Patron who can match you in skill.”

“What about McGonagall?” Ron interjected. “She’d be chuffed if you asked.”

Hermione shook her head. “Professors don’t usually take on Patronages. It’s a big investment of time. Plus she’s Headmaster now—it’s not considered the done thing for the Headmaster of Hogwarts to take on a former student. Although she might make an exception for you, Harry.”

Harry wasn’t sure that he would want to be mentored by McGonagall. They had a warm relationship, as far as teacher and student went. He had seen her at many funerals after the war and she had let him know that he was always welcome at Hogwarts, which was kind of her. But behind the stern facade there was always a hint of sadness, of shared memories. That was the trouble, wasn’t it? He would always be faced with the choice between people who knew and understood, who saw too much of him, and those who didn’t know or understand and saw too little.

The only ones who had ever been indifferent about his status were himself, his closest friends, and his enemies: Voldemort, and to a lesser extent, Draco. And Snape.

Then again, neither Draco nor Snape were his enemies now.

Harry drank the rest of his pint and considered the idea. Snape was of the appropriate age. He wasn’t likely to parade Harry around like a trophy—in fact the thought was ridiculous. And that would put an end to the whole dilemma, wouldn’t it? If Snape said _no_ Harry could say he’d made an effort and he didn’t want anyone else.

The next morning, he Apparated north and stepped onto the Hogwarts grounds for the first time in years.


	3. The Contract

Of course, what could Severus say? _Yes_ —he would be pilloried. _No_ —well, would the wizarding world find it more acceptable or less to have turned Potter down? Without a doubt, many would read nefarious intent into his actions either way. He was lost for words.

They stared at each other for a long moment until Minerva broke the silence.

“Let’s discuss this in my office.”

She led them to the atrium in her office. There was no Fawkes, no whirring, steaming gadgets scattered about the place anymore. Minerva had stocked the shelves with academic books and covered the walls with old House tapestries in a pointed show of House neutrality. She had placed several spartan pieces of furniture about the room, a testament to her approach to the position of Headmaster: spare and even-handed. Albus had liked to have comfortable chairs and candies for visitors to lull them into a false sense of security. More than one Ministry official had mistaken him for a doddering old fool only to have the rug yanked out from under them when Albus showed his hand. Contrarily, Minerva was upfront in all of her dealings.

Potter looked about the room as if he’d never been there, a pensive little line between his brows. The obvious shock of seeing Severus again for the first time since the Shrieking Shack had been replaced by his usual sullen aura. It struck Severus that he had not been back to the castle once since the war—it would be the first time he’d seen the office as it was.

Potter perched awkwardly on the sofa across from Severus as Minerva made and served them tea.

“Lemon?” she asked.

“Thank you.” Severus accepted the mug and set it on the table, his appetite having fled.

“Shortbread?” She held out the tin of them. Potter took one and put it down next to his tea. Minerva sighed. “Both of you, stop looking like this is someone’s funeral.”

Severus didn’t dignify that with a response.

Potter hadn’t even asked— _I’d like you to be my Patron_ , he’d said, as if all he had to do was want something and it would manifest. It grated on Severus. Storming in and demanding that everyone bend the rules for him was so quintessentially Potter, and it reminded him of everything he had likewise found irritating about Potter Senior. Things he had happily forgotten over the last three years.

It wasn’t the done thing to _ask_ someone to take you on as a Patron. In Pureblood circles it would be considered unforgivably gauche. A person of good breeding and class would infer that they were looking and wait for the right person to offer. Of course, Potter had neither of those things.

 _Neither do you_ , a voice in his head pointed out.

“I ought to leave the two of you to work this out on your own,” Minerva said. “However, Mr. Potter requested that I mediate the discussion. Mediation usually flows in the opposite direction, from Patron to protégé, but as usual with the two of you things are not exactly normal.”

Under ordinary circumstances a mediator would be a neutral third party who oversaw the Patronage and ensured that both parties reached an equitable agreement. A Patron might employ one at the end of the ‘courtship’ stage when the contract was to be signed. The fact that he’d requested a mediator meant Potter was serious—or at least he was pretending to be serious.

“Mr. Potter, I assume you have an excellent reason for this,” Minerva went on.

Potter looked down at his teacup. It was clear he didn’t want to say.

“I, too, am deathly curious as to what drove Mr. Potter to bring this nonsense to my door,” Severus drawled.

“If you think it’s nonsense then just say no,” Potter snapped, his hands balling into fists.

“And what if I do decline?” Severus demanded. “Did you stop to consider the consequences? Of course not.”

“I’ll leave and we don’t have to see each other again.” Potter finally looked him in the eye. “I’ll tell everyone I’m just not interested in a different Patron.”

Everything was so simple to Potter. Then again, he’d never been reviled nor feared, nor—worst of all—refused business because of his allegiances.

“Rita Skeeter would be a mercy compared to what the public would inflict upon me if I refused you a Patronage,” he said. “Consider my reputation nowadays and lower it by several measures.”

“I didn’t think about it that way,” Potter admitted.

Severus rolled his eyes. “Naturally. On the other hand I hardly have the time to attend to your every whim and I’m not convinced this isn’t an elaborate joke on your part.”

“So do you decline?” Potter asked, and damned if he didn’t look disappointed. What went through the boy’s mind he never could tell. Severus was going to regret every moment of this.

“No,” he said with a grimace. “Patronage seems the lesser of two evils in this situation. I accept.”

Potter straightened. “You what?”

“Severus, are you sure?” Minerva broke in.

“Potter is clearly in need of—” Severus waved his hand. “Guidance. Furthermore I have no wish to incur the wrath of his many slavering fans. Therefore the most prudent thing to do is to accept and end the contract when this foolishness has run its course.”

Potter bristled but wisely kept quiet. Minerva sighed deeply and took a long drink of her tea, which Severus suspected she had fortified with brandy by sleight-of-wand.

“Harry, do you understand what a Patronage entails?” she asked at last.

“Yes,” said Potter stubbornly.

“I would assume Granger educated him thoroughly,” Severus said. He was doubtful that Granger knew much more than a surface definition, but Patronage was an ancient practice and there was enough room for interpretation to satisfy any modernist.

“Your Patron should use his or her connections to benefit you: bring you to social events, introduce you to people in your chosen field, and generally uplift you as a member of wizarding society.” She looked between them. “Under his or her Patronage, you are required to show your appreciation for your Patron in a way that you both see fit. It is a reciprocal relationship, after all. This may take shape in the form of labour, magical work, attendance at certain functions, or simply—as you may have discovered already—media appearances. Especially for such a high-profile person as yourself.”

Potter scowled into his tea. “Yeah, I figured that out.”

“There will be no such ridiculous outings under me,” Severus sneered. The thought of him parading Potter about on his arm was absurd for a number reasons, not the least of which that there were still Death Eaters at large who would love to get their hands on him and he wasn’t keen to step outside the Hogwarts wards and into the public eye more often than necessary.

Minerva raised her wand. “Very well. I will conjure up the contract for you to read. Severus, may I speak to you in the other room?”

He followed her into the smaller office. A version of Albus twinkled at him from behind Minerva’s hat, but he steadfastly ignored the hated portrait. The two-dimensional versions of Albus had all of his smug, paternal instincts but none of the depth.

Minerva steepled her fingers in a way that was all too reminiscent of the late Headmaster. “Are you quite sure about this? You’ve never expressed interest in being a Patron before.”

Severus knew her well enough to see that behind her carefully neutral expression she dearly wanted to hex them both for fools and kick them out of her office. Only an indomitable sense of propriety kept her from it.

“Of course not,” he said, just to see the vein in her temple throb. In fairness, it was the truth. “The idea is preposterous. I’m hardly suited to be anyone’s mentor, let alone Potter’s.”

“Severus—” She hesitated. “I don’t say it because I believe you’d be a _poor_ Patron. I mean that it isn’t a contract that should be taken lightly.”

“And I do not take it lightly.”

“Are you doing this out of some overgrown sense of duty to the boy?”

Severus snorted. “Surely you know me better.”

“Then why?” she pressed.

He spared a moment to wonder who she was trying to protect—him or Potter. Her loyalties lay solidly with Gryffindor when it came down to the wire, but she had never shied away from letting Severus know what she thought was best for his edification, either.

On the other hand, perhaps she was hurt that Potter had not come to _her_ with his proposal.

“I find it ironic that Potter identified me as the most viable candidate for his scheme,” Severus admitted. “There are plenty more fitting Patrons and he conspired to make the most inappropriate choice possible for reasons even he probably does not understand.”

“And you get a bit of your own back,” Minerva prompted. “Maybe your reputation even improves, provided he doesn’t get angry and speak ill of you to the press. Am I close?”

“I certainly wouldn’t put it like that, but you may.”

“You have no plans to terrorize him, I hope,” she stated firmly. “The poor boy has been through enough.”

“I respect the tradition.”

“And you don’t expect that he will terrorize you, either, do you, Severus? The boy is forgiving to a fault.”

Severus made a sour face. “I am aware of his shortcomings, yes.”

Minerva snorted. “Well, then. Harry is an adult capable of making his own decisions, so I suppose I ought to give you the same credit.”

“‘Capable’ might be a stretch, but he’s certainly not beholden to anyone these days,” Severus agreed. “And, I hope, neither am I.”

“No, indeed,” said Minerva softly.

The Marauders—minus the loathsome rat—were no doubt rolling in their assorted graves. Naturally he expected the whole thing to end in tragedy, with him on his way to Siberia before the year was out. But Potter had seemed sincere, and that struck an odd note.

Like Minerva said, he was an adult. Maybe not one who was in the habit of considering the consequences of his actions, but one who might get there eventually.

He’d done well in avoiding the assorted rabble who might want his Patronage, for example.

“Very well.” Minerva stood. “Let’s get this done.”

Potter hadn’t changed his mind by the time they returned, but he looked more sullen than ever.

“If you’re going to talk about me I would appreciate being in on the conversation,” he said. “I hope I’ve moved past the stage of my life where those older and wiser exclude me from important decisions about my life.”

“Not everything is about you, Potter,” Severus said snidely.

Minerva intervened smoothly. “I wanted to be sure that Severus understood what he was taking on. Professors at Hogwarts are not encouraged to enter a Patronage as it may interfere with their work. But since both you and Severus are exceptions to every rule—” here she managed to sound disapproving and fond at once, “—I don’t imagine I’ll be able to stop you.”

Potter had the grace to look abashed. “Right. Sorry, Professors. Force of habit.”

Severus interjected. “If I am to be your Patron, you may as well call me Severus.”

He tried not to let his discomfort with the idea show on his face. Potter looked equally unsettled.

“Right,” he said. And belatedly, “Thanks. Severus.”

It was odd to hear his given name coming from the boy’s mouth. Not awful, Severus decided. Perhaps they could get through this after all.

Potter looked to Minerva and she cleared her throat. “Headmaster suits me just fine, thank you, Mr. Potter.”

He laughed and she gave him an indulgent smile. Severus rolled his eyes internally, but only a little.

The contract was standard for the process. It had a fairly generic clause about reciprocity that would all-too-likely not be binding in a court of law, which was just fine with Severus. It wasn’t the law that mattered here: it was the magic.

“Are you both certain that you don’t want something more specific?” Minerva asked. “This is the most basic contract. Usually there’s an addendum about the nature of your Patronage. As you know there is no specified end date, but it would be highly unusual for one to last less than two years. It’s valuable to both parties to sketch out your agreement in more concrete terms.”

Potter frowned. In all likelihood he hadn’t considered this at all, being the impulsive Gryffindor that he was, so Severus took pity on him.

“I’m sure we can negotiate suitable terms at a later date,” he said.

“Yeah.” Potter smiled nervously. “Hermione will be angry at me for signing anything without letting her read it over, but… I’ve already made the choice.”

“As you wish.” Minerva gestured to the contract. “In that case, go ahead and sign, please.”

“Er. How?” Potter asked.

“With your wand,” Severus interjected. Merlin, the boy had really defeated the most powerful wizard of several generations in spite of himself. “Press your wand to the parchment and state aloud that you accept the terms of the contract.”

Potter took out his wand and put the tip of it to the paper. “I, er, accept the terms of the contract.”

There was a flash of warm light like fire and the smell of hot air rose around them. Potter peered down at the parchment where a silver mark had appeared. It writhed like smoke.

“What is that?”

“Your magical signature,” said Minerva. “Severus?”

He placed his wand in the same spot and intoned, “I accept the terms of the contract.”

A gentle susurration swept over him and he shut his eyes, revelling in the familiarity of his magic as it rose up in him. It was calming as always, like putting his fingers to the cool surface of a healing potion or seeing the moon rise over the Great Lake at night. When he opened his eyes the dark wisp of his magical signature had entwined with the silvery ink-stain of Potter’s, and he felt the binding of the contract as a thread at the edge of his consciousness.

“The two of you are free to go.” Minerva rolled up the contract and tapped it with her wand to fasten it into a scroll. “I will keep this until such time as you wish to dissolve the contract. Keep in mind that it need not be a mutual decision.”

Severus stood. “Thank you, Minerva.”

She met his eye. “I have resigned myself to the fact that neither of you will ever take the easy road, but I truly wish for a fulfilling partnership for you both.”


	4. Night-Blooming Glory

“Professor Snape—Severus,” Harry said, hurrying after Snape. “Wait. Maybe we should talk about this?”

“I rather think we’re past the talking stage, Mr. Potter,” said Snape.

His black robes still swept out behind him like a funereal train, Harry noted with amusement. He looked shockingly unchanged for someone who had come so close to death’s door. His hair was tied back now, emphasizing the stark lines of his face, but other things were the same. His patrician nose still overshadowed the rest of his features. His scowl was familiar.

It was strange to see him after so many years. There had been many reasons Harry never visited Snape in the hospital, but they were all entangled in his mind into one big ball of emotion that he hadn’t managed to parse out into individual strands. Here was guilt, there was uncertainty, and in the mix was a helping of fear—that Snape would be the same, or that he would have changed. Which would be worse, he wasn’t sure.

Now he found that both were true. Snape looked the same, thought perhaps a bit older and with newer robes, but he was subtly different. For one thing he hadn’t immediately dismissed Harry out of hand or mocked him. In fact he’d been serious about the whole thing.

Harry had to admit he’d half expected that Snape would laugh him out of Hogwarts and it would be the end of all this Patron stuff. Now that they were here, however, he was eager to know what was to come. He was surprised by his own boldness. On the other hand he didn’t want to admit he had no clue what he was doing.

“We ought to talk about the kind of work you want me to do, at least,” he said.

Snape was heading toward the dungeons. The crowd of students parted around him easily—they still avoided him. Harry, on the other hand, drew awed looks and whispers.

“Also you should call me Harry,” he said boldly.

“ _Harry_ ,” said Snape, rounding on him as they entered the lower hall. His voice was dangerously low. “Maybe you should have considered all of the nasty sorts of things I could have you do before you came to Hogwarts to demand that I be your Patron.”

Harry bristled at this unfairness. “We both signed the contract. I didn’t _demand_ anything.”

“I could not very well refuse,” Snape said.

“Is that why you agreed? Because you thought you had to?” Harry fought to keep the disappointment from his tone.

Since the idea of asking Snape came to him he hadn’t been able to shake it. It seemed like the most elegant solution no matter what the outcome, and he’d applauded himself for thinking of it. Now he wondered if he’d done Snape as big a disservice as he seemed to be suggesting.

“Certainly not because of your wit and charm,” Snape said acerbically. “I’ve no wish to be even more of a pariah than I am today. I suggest you return to London and think about what you want out of this, and I will likewise contemplate my… questionable choice. We can discuss the terms of the contract later.”

He hurried off, and this time Harry didn’t try to follow him.

Hermione was, as he’d predicted, livid.

“You _asked Snape?_ And you _signed the contract already?”_ Her voice became shrill. Harry winced. “I’m coming over right away!”

“No, ‘Mione, you’re in the middle of exams,” he protested weakly. “This can wait. He said we’d both ‘think about it’, anyway. I don’t think he’s going to be summoning me for a chat any time soon.”

“Of course not!” she shrieked.

Harry grimaced.

“Sorry. Of course he won’t be—you’ve all but ensured that his nice, peaceful life will become a media circus the instant the two of you step out in public together. I’m surprised he’s not _furious_ at you. I’m surprised he didn’t toss you out immediately.”

“I think he might be angry,” Harry offered. “And what about me? My life is always a media circus.”

“Yes, and instead of finding someone bland and helpful to be your Patron, whom the media wouldn’t care two Knuts for, you went and got Severus Snape, Order of Merlin, First Class, ex-Death Eater spy, who incidentally was notorious for hating you all throughout school. Congratulations.”

“When you put it that way—”

“—It’s the truth,” she interrupted. “I’m very tired because Ron insisted on coming to Oxford to help me during exam season, which, bless him, was a terrible idea, and Draco has been up my bum about studying together, so I don’t have the energy to sugarcoat this for you. You are going to have to sort this mess out yourself, and you’d better not make it hard on Professor Snape. You didn’t see him in the hospital.”

She broke off. Harry winced. It was a sore point between them because he’d never been able to properly explain why he wouldn’t go—and his reasons wouldn’t have satisfied her anyway.

“You didn’t see him,” she repeated, softer. “He went through a lot, and people still hate him for what he did. Nobody will go easy on him for this. They’re going to say he’s corrupted you, or that you’re under the influence of a spell. Or maybe even that you were coerced.”

“But I approached him,” Harry said. “How could he coerce me when we haven’t spoken since—”

_Since the Shrieking Shack, when I left him to die alone?_

He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back against the bed of pillows he’d tossed onto the floor to fire-call Hermione. From behind her he heard a familiar voice.

“Granger, are you quite finished? Surely Potter doesn’t need you to clean up _all_ of his many mistakes.”

“Cheers to you, too, Draco,” Harry called.

“Fuck off,” Draco called in return.

“I’m afraid Draco’s right. I’m sorry I can’t be there for you, but this is the worst timing.”

“Yeah, I understand. Get back to work,” he joked. “I’ll be fine.”

“Bye, Harry.”

“Ta.” He wiggled his fingers at her and she disappeared from the Floo.

Selfishly, he wished Ron were here. He might not understand but he’d happily distract Harry from his terrible decisions. Alone in the apartment all there was to do was think about what Snape had said— _even more of a pariah than I am today_ —and what Hermione had said— _people will say he’s corrupted you._

Snape was right. He _had_ acted unthinkingly. Or rather, he’d been thinking of himself.

For a time in his childhood Harry had been told most emphatically that nothing was ever about him, and that he was worth no more than the barest glance or the crusts off his cousin’s plate. Contrarily, at eleven he had suddenly been thrust into a world where _everything_ was about him. Parties were held on his birthday. They still were, for that matter—he’d heard rumours from Kingsley that they were hoping to officially name it Harry Potter Day. Strangers wanted to shake his hand and get his autograph. People tried to kill him. An evil wizard had risen up and built and army out of fear of him, Harry Potter, the boy who lived under the stairs.

He tipped his head back against the sofa and stared at the ceiling.

Now the war was over, though, and he wasn’t just a figurehead for the wizarding world. He was a person who had to be better than a figurehead. More real, somehow. More himself.

Snape’s summons came sooner than Harry had expected. He was enjoying a lazy Sunday off from practice—and steadfastly avoiding his mail—when an unfamiliar owl tapped on his window bearing a scroll stamped with a wax seal. He had finally gotten Hermione to tell him how to add any new hopeful Patrons to the filter, so it couldn’t be any of them.

He unlatched the window and the owl stepped inside in a dignified manner and gave him a look of reproach for not being more prompt. He offered it an owl treat as an apology. It was a large, handsome barn owl with brindled wings and big, golden eyes. While it devoured the treat Harry opened the scroll.

 _Mr. Potter,_ it read. _Meet me at the western edge of the Hogwarts wards this Thursday evening at nine o’clock. We will discuss the terms of our contract then. Come prepared._

He had signed it _Severus Snape, Potions Master,_ as if Harry were a professional acquaintance.

 _Come prepared_. Harry snorted. Like it was some kind of exam, not the negotiation of a cooperative relationship between two people.

By the time Thursday rolled around he felt far from prepared, and his mind was all over the place.

“You alright, Potter?” Nate Dalton asked after practice, throwing him a concerned look. “You seemed a bit off your game out there. Not coming down with something, are you?”

“Nah.” He shrugged off Dalton’s concern. “Not me. I don’t get sick. Just got my head in the clouds today, sorry. I’ll have it sorted by game night.”

“You’d better, my man.” Dalton chuckled. “Plymouth’s defence is no joke. We’re going to need you to grab us that hundred twenty points.”

“No problem.” Harry grinned. “You know me.”

“Yeah, you’re a good egg.” Dalton clapped his shoulder. “Good luck with whatever’s on your mind, mate.”

“Thanks,” Harry said.

Dalton was a decade older than Harry and getting up there in years for someone who’d never made big league Quidditch, but he’d had a respectable career and he was a solid player. Harry liked him. He was the Dragons’ Keeper and Captain. It took a particular kind of guy to be Keeper—a steadfastness. They usually stuck with one team their whole career, even in the upper leagues. Harry appreciated his grounding effect on the team.

At a quarter to nine Harry put on his cleanest jeans and a sweater and Apparated to a point on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. The Hogwarts wards were stronger now than they’d been when he was attending—maybe a remnant of the war or maybe McGonagall’s influence. Certainly there were still Dark wizards roaming about who’d like nothing more than to get inside the castle grounds and make a name for themselves. He could feel them as an almost physical presence pulsating in the back of his head, some unpleasant residue of the Dark Mark that he’d never examined. In the same way, he could feel the contract—a glowing silver thread that connected he and Snape, the colour of a memory as it went into a Pensieve.

The thread grew momentarily brighter, and Snape appeared. His hair was down around his shoulders, long now, and he held his wand out for a light. He carried two cloth sacks, one of which he handed to Harry.

“We will be collecting the delicate Night-Blooming Glory,” he said. “It grows on the far west side of the lake, beyond the wards. I would usually go alone but there was a sighting of Alecto Carrow near the village a week ago, thus Minerva insists that I mustn’t leave the wards unaccompanied. You will have to do as a bodyguard.”

He was clearly unimpressed by this order. Harry only shrugged.

“I’m good at that.”

“We’ll see.” Snape set off on foot, so Harry surmised they weren’t Apparating there.

“Why walk?” he asked.

“The Glory is prized for its magical properties rather than its chemical composition, like some potions ingredients,” Snape replied. “It must not be tainted by a witch or wizard’s magical signature. These collection bags are made to neutralize any stray magic, and once collected I will dry and store them in similarly neutralized jars. Needless to say Apparating nearby would render them useless.”

They walked for a while along a trail that Harry had never known existed which passed in and out of the reeds growing next to the Great Lake. Frogs muttered around them and bats swooped across the surface of the lake. Harry was surprised to be calmed by this scene rather than tense at the mention of the Death Eater at large, or the fact that he was following Severus Snape, of all people.

“I’d like for you to teach me wandless magic,” he said, breaking the silence. It had been the only thing he could think of that he might actually want out of a Patronage with Snape. If not this, then he didn’t know what to negotiate for.

“Hmm.” Snape didn’t turn to look at him. “Filius Flitwick would be better for that, or even the Headmaster.”

“I know you can do wandless magic, though,” Harry said. “And I want to learn. I’ve tried but it never goes well. If I try to light a fire I might nearly burn the flat down, or if I Summon my Quidditch gear I end up with half my wardrobe.”

“You lack control.” Snape paused to allow Harry to catch up at the wider wooden boardwalk.

“Can you teach me?” Harry asked.

“Teach you control?” He seemed to consider it seriously. “Yes. If you’re capable of learning it. But why not something more useful, like Occlumency?”

Harry frowned. “I’m rubbish at Occlumency. I always have been.”

“Precisely. It’s your most glaring weakness—your mind is open to any enemy with the skill to perform Legilimency.”

“Well, with Voldemort gone I don’t see it being a problem,” Harry said.

Snape stiffened. “The Dark Lord was one man who represented the sentiment of many. You must never assume that the darkness has gone away. It is only ever waiting for the right moment to resurge.”

“Do you think I should learn Occlumency?” he asked, perplexed. Voldemort was dead and the Death Eaters scattered or imprisoned; Harry wasn’t so naive as to imagine that they weren’t a threat, but they were on a different scale from Voldemort himself.

“If you’re not ready to learn there is not much point in trying to teach you.” Snape shook his head sharply.

Thrown off-balance by the turn of the conversation, Harry fell silent.

The silence accompanied them all the way to the weedy field where the Night-Blooming Glory grew wild. Snape had long since put his wand away and they walked in darkness, being careful on the poorly-maintained pathway. Vines rustled gently on either side of them. The magic of the Forbidden Forest extended out to the marsh land, and maybe even into the lake. Harry remembered how the lake weeds had seemed to reach for him when he’d swum in it during the Triwizard Tournament.

Snape showed him how to twist the flowers off their stems and they bent to the task.

“I will teach you wandless magic,” Snape said at last, out of the blue, his voice startling the frogs into silence. “It’s a skill that will probably serve you well. Although when you enter the upper league in Quidditch you’ll be required to bind your magic during the games as an anti-cheating measure.”

“I—thank you,” said Harry, recognizing the peace offering for what it was.

“As for the rest, I have little political clout from my days as Lucius Malfoy’s lackey,” Snape said, Malfoy’s name falling bitter off his tongue. “But I can introduce you to whomever you wish in my limited sphere. There is merit to the formal introduction when it comes to Pureblood and high wizarding society. Those sorts of people can make your career.”

“I don’t really need that—” Harry began, but he thought better of it. Awkwardly, he finished with, “—but thank you all the same.”

“You’re a fool if you have no political ambition at all,” said Snape. “The most idealistic Gryffindor knows the value of politics. Even Minerva has her pawns in the Big House, and she is a consummate centrist.”

“I’ve never thought about it,” he said honestly.

“Of course. Perhaps it ought to be part of your education.”

That didn’t seem to require any response from him, so he stayed quiet. As he plucked the flowers their vines crept around his fingers and he had to gently disentangle them. It wasn’t the type of activity he was used to these days; it reminded him of being back in school. The bag was soon filled with a luminescent purple slowly winking out as the flowers died.

“In return, you will accompany me on outings such as these,” Snape said. “Even when there are no Carrows potentially lurking in the shadows, it isn’t always safe for me to be alone in public.”

He said this slowly, as if reluctant to admit it, and his eyes turned away toward the field. His capable hands twisted the whole flower head off its vine and placed each one gently with its brethren. Harry wondered briefly what sort of potion they were used in.

“If I am brewing something that requires two sets of hands, you will provide assistance.”

“With potions?” Harry asked, surprised.

“Your OWL’s were satisfactory and I have no desire to hire an assistant who might sabotage me. No one besides Mr. Malfoy is capable of producing the quality of work I need, anyway, and he is—” Severus sneered. “Indisposed. You are powerful enough to be a buffer for me, which is a close second.”

Snape met his eyes, and Harry felt a visceral tug on the silver thread connecting them. He swallowed.

“That’s—that’s fine,” he said. “I just have to be around London for games and practice days.”

“Some potions cannot be delayed,” Snape warned. “I will do my best to give you advance warning.”

“Is that all you get out of this?” Harry asked. “A sometimes potions assistant and a bodyguard?”

“Is wandless magic all you want from a Patron? Or is that a failure of imagination?” Snape returned.

“I don’t _want_ anything except to be left alone, mostly,” Harry said.

“Then we’re in agreement.”

And that would have to be good enough for now, Harry supposed. If either of them changed his mind, they had two years to renegotiate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please recall the 'slow burn' tag lol.
> 
> Sorry for the delay lovely readers, it has been A Week.


	5. Wandless Magic

It was clear to Severus that Potter had no idea what he wanted—not from a Patron, and especially not from him. The only capacity he knew Severus in was as a professor, and perhaps it was the only role he could conjure up. Severus suspected he yearned for some nostalgic thing to bring him back to the Hogwarts era when he was more sure of his place in the world.

In time he would understand that a different Patron could have brought him more wealth in friends, acquaintances and power, but that wasn’t Severus’s concern. He would do as Potter wanted. He had little reason not to; it was the most interesting and infuriating thing that had happened to him since his recovery.

In the meantime perhaps he could impress upon the boy the importance of Occlumency and convince him it would be in his favour to learn. He had selfish reasons for it—Potter’s emotions leaked through his weak defences like water through a sieve, and Severus found them distracting. He had little use for his own feelings, never mind those of other people.

For this reason he did not summon Potter again right away. The Night-Blooming Glories needed constant attention during their preservation and they were a crucial ingredient in his current project. He couldn’t afford distraction. But to his surprise, less than a week later a generic brown post owl arrived from Potter carrying a roll of Muggle parchment that bore Potter’s scratchy handwriting in that instrument they called the ‘ballpoint’—unconscionably classless. He opened the letter over breakfast, thankfully away from Minerva’s curious eye.

_Dear Severus_ , it began, and his fingers tightened involuntarily on the paper as a surge of some unidentifiable emotion rose within him. Rage, perhaps, at Potter’s casual yet intimate address. He had _told_ the boy to call him Severus, though. He forced himself to smooth out the paper again.

_When can we arrange a regular meeting for you to teach me wandless magic?_

_Regards,_

_Harry._

He summoned a House Elf and told her to bring ink, quill and parchment from his office so that he could write a response. Filius regarded him curiously from the other end of the table as he uncapped the ink next to his coffee but Severus ignored him.

_Mr. Potter,_

_Be at the old Charms classroom on the second floor on Sunday at 8PM. I will not tolerate tardiness._

_Severus._

It took a great deal of willpower not to add ‘ _…Snape, Potions Master’_ to the end of his signature. He sanded the letter and set it aside to dry, turning his eye to the House tables. Would they need to meet once a week? Perhaps every two weeks would do. At least he had a role to play that was familiar—and he supposed he ought to be thankful that Potter was unimaginative or else he could have demanded a different kind of education, one that Severus would be ill-equipped to give.

On the day of their first lesson Severus went to the classroom early to prepare. Dust had settled like a thick, low-lying fog over the abandoned room, shrouding the tables and chairs and the shelves full of knick-knacks that went all the way up to the ceiling. He lit a few torches and tried to dispel the dust but only succeeded in making it billow up and fly about. With a sneeze he waved his wand to settle it down. A second attempt was successful, and, Banished, the dust went to lurk sullenly in the corners and wait until they had left the room, when it could colonize the furniture once more.

Just as he was preparing a lecture for Potter on the sin of tardiness the boy himself came through the door like a whirlwind. He was grinning and carried a broomstick in one hand, his striking green eyes clear and bright against the blush of his wind-burned cheeks and his dark hair sticking up in all directions. In his other hand he gripped the Cloak of Invisibility, the first of the three Deathly Hallows, like it was a sweat-rag.

“Snape!” he greeted Severus, sounding almost pleased to see him.

Severus was struck momentarily silent by the force of all of this combined and directed at him. It had been an unthinkably long time since he had felt that sudden, knowing spark in him, and what a terrible way to rediscover that he was in fact a man with desires.

Potter’s grin slowly faded and he shifted uncertainly on his feet. Severus roused himself from his idiotic stupor and gestured him in.

“Potter. You flew here?” he asked dumbly.

“Oh, no, just the last little bit. I like to fly for fun sometimes, you know? It’s more invigorating than just Apparating everywhere.”

Severus fumbled for words. “Put your broom over there. I assume it’s some hideously expensive piece of equipment paid for by the team, so let’s endeavour not to damage it.”

“Right.” Potter laid his broom to one side and dropped the Invisibility Cloak atop the nearest desk. The material crumpled into a silvery pile. Severus’s wand hand twitched with the urge to fold it properly. “I paid for it, actually. The team’s equipment, that is. It was sort of an excuse to get something nice for myself.”

His grin returned, shyer now. Severus refused to be charmed by it. The boy probably turned that look on everyone.

He shook his head. “You should be more careful with your Galleons. Loyalties are not bought with gold.”

“I didn’t do it for that,” Potter said, shrugging, unperturbed. “We needed new equipment for practice. The league has a standard and it’s tough for little teams to find a sponsor who’ll pay for them to come up to code.”

This was so distressingly mature that Severus had to look away. He waved his wand at the desks and they shifted out of the way with a clatter, leaving a long, empty row from one end of the classroom to the next. He had lit torches on either side so that they had some light to work by, and now he set to work building shields so that the effects of their spells wouldn’t leave the classroom. Shields were usually a matter of course at Hogwarts, where a child’s wayward spell could do a lot of damage, but sometimes they fell by the wayside in old, unused classrooms like this one.

“Er, Severus,” Potter said hesitantly, and the use of his name made him turn. “I wanted to apologize for before. For coming in and asking you to be my Patron without really thinking about what it would mean for you.”

He leaned against the nearest desk to hide the tension in his frame and his expression sincere as he delivered the only apology Severus had heard from anyone in his life except Albus. Severus understood suddenly he couldn’t keep calling Potter a ‘boy’ in his head—he wasn’t a boy, and that was entirely the point.

“Apology accepted,” he said shortly.

Potter’s shoulders sagged with relief. “So what are we doing?” he asked.

“Duelling. It’s obvious that your strength lies in your ability to do the unexpected under pressure and we should use that to our advantage.”

His eyebrows went up. “That’s… a good idea.”

Severus didn’t dignify that with a response. “Have you been practicing?”

“Not really. During the war we had to practice constantly. Now I don’t think anyone wants to revisit those times. I never wanted to ask Ron or Hermione, and everyone else is pretty busy with their own lives.”

“There are duelling clubs in every corner of the city. If you cared to look you would certainly have found one,” Severus pointed out.

“I’m not keen on duelling with strangers,” Potter said.

He wondered if Potter had been avoiding magic, whether consciously or not. The rush of spellcasting could be addictive but the memories that came along with it were probably an effective counterpoint. He certainly knew that from experience.

“We’ll see how much you’ve forgotten, then.”

They went to opposite ends of the long room and drew their wands. Severus turned to bow and was pleased to see Potter do the same—despite his unorthodox, partially self-taught methods he apparently retained some of what he'd learned in school.

"Assume position," Severus barked, widening his stance. Wand at his side, he didn't bother with the preliminary countdown. "Use your non-dominant hand to cast. Commence!"

Most wandless training began by using one’s non-dominant hand, then brandishing the wand with one hand while casting with the other, and finally removing the wand from the equation altogether. Thus the wizard became acclimatized to thinking of his magic independently of the wand.

He switched hands and gave Potter a half second to catch up before he attacked. " _Tarantallegra_!"

“ _Expelliarmus_!" Potter cried, ducking the jinx.

Severus whipped his wand in a slashing motion and countered with a wordless shield spell, into which Potter's disarming charm slammed like a battering ram. The shield faded quickly after that.

" _Locomotor Wibbly_!" Potter aimed with his left hand again, but his aim was poor and Severus evaded the Jelly-Legs jinx easily.

He retaliated with a numbing charm directed at Potter’s left hand. Potter dropped his wand as predicted, and Severus followed it up with a Full Body Bind curse.

Potter scrambled to his feet and threw out his right hand. “ _Protego_!"

The shield charm burst from him in a riot of silvery grey and black. The curse bounced off it and went astray and the charm flew at Severus and hit him in the chest. His legs buckled and the air went out of his lungs. The charm expanded rapidly to fill the room and hit the static shielding he'd raised earlier with an explosive sound. Tables and chairs went flying into the shelves, wood splintering. Both of them ducked and covered their heads.

"What _was_ that?" Potter said, slowly straightening. "Are you alright?"

Severus tried to stand and found his legs lacking the strength, to his shame. Potter hurried to his side and got one hand under his arms to lift him bodily to his feet.

"I'm unhurt," he said through gritted teeth.

"Is it the Jelly-Legs?" Potter asked.

“Neither curse hit me.” He braced himself against Potter’s shoulder.

"Then what happened?"

He pulled away from Potter’s grip with some effort and caught himself on the nearest desk to keep from falling on his face. “Your Shield charm was too powerful. It reacted poorly to the wards I placed on the room."

"But what happened to you?" Potter persisted.

"I don't know!" He snapped. "It must have been too much exertion. I haven't been the same, magically, since the war."

"It's been three years," Potter said, his eyebrows drawing together. "You're still healing?"

"No one but the Dark Lord himself knows the true lasting effect of Nagini's poison," he said. "It could be that I will never fully heal."

"That's bollocks," Potter said hotly.

“St Mungo's might disagree with you.” Trust Potter to become overly invested in the suffering of every passing acquaintance.

"Sorry—it’s just that—” Potter backtracked. “I mean that it isn’t right. Voldemort died without ever facing justice for the things he did. He’s just… gone. And the rest of us have to live on with all the awful things he did.”

Severus sighed. He had come to terms with the unjustness of the world a long time ago. “Get your broom and cloak. I think the lesson is over for today.”

Potter fetched his broom and tucked it and the Invisibility Cloak under one arm. He came forward to help Severus up again, but Severus warded him off with a scowl.

“No, no. I don’t need assistance walking.”

The pace he could manage was painfully slow. Potter said nothing, displaying a surprising amount of tact, although Severus bristled at being treated like an invalid who couldn’t manage his own pride. So be it—that was the truth, after all.

“The Dark Lord feared death above all else,” he said as they travelled at a glacial rate toward the stairs. “Do you not think death without hope of resurrection is justice enough?”

“Death doesn’t seem so bad,” said Potter.

“It certainly wasn’t pleasant to come back from the brink of it,” Severus said.

They reached the stairs and Severus paused and looked down at them, daunted. He wished Potter would leave so that he could summon a house elf to help him.

Potter seemed not to notice that they’d stopped. “I guess I had it easy. The Killing Curse was painless and I went to my death willingly.”

Even as someone who refused to read the news rags and rarely had contact with the outside world, Severus couldn’t have failed to hear the story of how Potter came back from the dead to kill the Dark Lord. He suspected he was one of very few who knew that it was the truth and not just an exaggeration. He had not spent a good deal of time thinking about it—the full extent of Albus’s manipulations didn’t bear examination.

Albus had once suggested that he had secluded himself at Hogwarts to limit his ability to acquire power and influence, but Severus knew that he nevertheless saw himself as the stronghold of Light. He had felt it was his duty to ensure all the moving parts came together smoothly so the world would eventually be brought to order.

He’d not been wrong, of course, but sometimes the cost—to all of them—was almost impossible to comprehend.

“I need to sit down,” Severus said abruptly.

Potter helped him down to sit at the top of the stairs, which were mercifully unmoving now that curfew was past. “Are you alright? Should I help you back to your rooms?”

Severus ignored the question. “When you saw the memory I gave you in the Shrieking Shack was it the first time you understood that he meant for you to be the sacrificial lamb?”

“It was the first time I heard it from Dumbledore himself,” said Potter. He sat down next to Severus. Their shoulders brushed briefly, warm through the fine wool of his robe. “I suspected, though. Since about the end of sixth year, in the tower. It’s all about balance, right? So in order for Voldemort to die I also had to die. I didn’t expect to come back.”

Severus wished that he could resurrect Albus to shake him by the shoulders and demand to know how he could have done it—grooming this child for death since the day he was marked by the Dark Lord, sending him to suffer for eleven years under the yoke of misery with a family who hated him. Albus had always placed so much importance on blood ties. It was ironic, really.

“I expected to die,” Severus said abruptly, looking at his work-worn hands. A Potions Master’s hands were calloused and stained, not like those of a wizard of means. He had never thought to the future of these hands, to a long life stretching out without understanding of his usefulness or place. He had never thought he’d survive the war.

“Well, I guess we’re just a couple of ghosts.” Potter chuckled humourlessly. “You haunting the castle, and me haunting the Dulwich Dragons Quidditch team.”

“Merlin forbid,” said Severus without rancour.

He dismissed Potter then. Both the extensive use of his magic and the awful conversation left him exhausted. He supposed they couldn’t help but press on each others’ wounds, each a reminder of things the other would rather forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how much it pains me to look up canonical spells and discover they're called things like 'Locomotor Wibbly', lol.


	6. The Potion

After the incident with the _Protego_ Snape seemed to give up on duelling as a method of teaching, much to Harry’s disappointment. Duelling with Snape had been—exciting. He hadn’t realized how much he missed it.

Instead Snape started Harry on endless repetitions of the Summoning charm, getting him to summon objects from various places around the room. Harry was abysmal at it.

“I want to learn things that’ll be _useful_ ,” he complained after another failed attempt to Summon a textbook from the highest shelf of the old Charms classroom.

Snape grunted. He was nose-deep in marking OWL’s and even less chatty than usual. Harry found himself irritated. Worse, he was starting to second-guess himself. If this was the kind of mentorship he could expect then maybe he’d made a rash decision. Snape wasn’t known for his enthusiasm or generosity, and toward Harry least of all.

“The Summoning charm is statistically the most oft-used spell in a witch or wizard’s repertoire,” Snape said, not lifting his eyes from the test he was marking. “Surely you are not too good to learn such a common household charm.”

Harry sighed and lifted his hand again. “ _Accio_!”

The textbook wobbled mockingly and stayed put. Something shot toward him and hit him in the arm: his wand, Summoned from its place next to Snape’s elbow.

“Ow.” He grabbed it and flopped back onto the desk he’d been sitting on.

“Stop playing around,” Snape barked. He snapped his fingers and Harry’s errant wand wriggled out of his grip and flew back to Snape, wandless _and_ wordless. It glided to a gentle halt on his desk.

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Harry protested. “Why can’t I get it right?”

Snape looked up and set aside his quill. “Your magical ability is heavily centred around life-threatening situations. You lack control over your mind, your emotions, and your magic—until now, you have miraculously been able to get by without it.”

Harry sat up, annoyed that Snape had resorted to his usual digs. “That’s hardly my fault, though, is it?” he snapped.

“If you were still a child, no.” Snape’s expression was frustratingly blank. It was as if the other night on the stairs had never happened and Harry was fumbling for something, some connection, that was just out of reach. “As an adult? Control is a necessity. The spell eludes you because you’re using a broadsword where a needle will do.”

“But how do I _learn_ if it’s just not coming to me?”

“It will come.”

It was as oblique an answer as Dumbledore had ever given. Harry fought down the urge to complain, which would only earn him more snarky comments. Instead he lifted his hand again.

“ _Accio_ textbook!”

The shelf rumbled warningly. The textbook zoomed toward him with the speed of a Bludger, quickly followed by four other nearby books. Harry yelped and ducked as they whipped past and hit the opposite wall with a thud. There was a creaking and groaning and he realized with horror that the shelf itself was pulling away from the wall.

“ _Accio_ wand!” he cried, but Snape had picked it up and it twitched helplessly in his grip.

“ _Finite Incantum_ ,” he said calmly, pointing Harry’s wand at the bookshelf. The noise ceased and the massive wooden thing was still again. He turned back to Harry, who braced himself to be chastised.

“That’s progress,” Snape said instead. Harry grinned foolishly.

Harry was glad Hermione had come back to London for the summer but he had to admit that the flat had begun to feel crowded. Besides Hermione, Luna was a frequent visitor—and Neville as a consequence—and while it was nice to have friends around, sometimes he felt it was a bit much to be surrounded by people who had their lives so figured out. Ron was on track to become partner at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Luna had taken a job at a Muggle shop nearby _and_ an apprenticeship in a London apothecary, which she claimed was full of magical creatures if you knew where to look. Harry presumed she meant live ones as opposed to those in jars. Neville was undergoing his own apprenticeship in Herbology. And Hermione didn’t bear thinking about—Harry had no doubt she’d be Minister for Magic before she reached forty.

Where did that leave him? It was at times like these he endured a stab of sudden panic and wondered why he hadn’t accepted a Patron who might help him get somewhere in life.

Then he was immediately guilty, because Snape _was_ helping him. His lessons in wandless magic had progressed from _Accio_ to sending pillows flying about the room, although Snape had retired to the upper level of the classroom to be out of the line of fire. Harry had smacked himself in the face with a pillow enough times to be sympathetic to this.

But as Ron pointed out, it wasn’t exactly a typical Patronage.

“He’s just teaching you something you could have learned by yourself,” Ron said. “How is this going to further your career?”

“It’s not all about career,” said Hermione.

“Yeah, and besides, I don’t even know what I want to do.” Harry had enough gold in his vault that he could live comfortably for the rest of his life and never work, but the idea didn’t appeal to him.

“Maybe the right person would've been able to help you out with that,” Ron said. “I have to say, it’s mad that you’re getting along with Snape of all people.”

“I don't know if I'd call it getting along,” Harry joked, thinking of the dour expression that greeted him every Tuesday evening. “But he's not so bad now. Maybe he's mellowed out.”

“I would imagine that not being under constant threat of torture and death would do that,” Hermione said. “You've changed since the war, too, Harry.”

But saying aloud that it wasn’t so bad seemed to jinx it. The next lesson Snape was acerbic and snippy, reverting back to his usual insults when Harry pushed back out of irritation.

He had given Harry a task both ridiculous and unnecessarily complicated—Harry was meant to wandlessly direct the pillows in an intricate waltz, making them bow and wave their individual corners. Harry could make them bend in half but every time he wanted them to puff up again the cotton covers ripped and sent feathers flying, and Snape would bark, "Focus!"

"I _am_ focusing," Harry muttered. "Maybe if you were teaching me instead of just giving orders—"

"Not good enough for you, Potter?" Snape waved his wand briskly at the torn pillows and they knitted themselves back together. “If you feel that way you're free to leave. Merlin knows I don't have the patience to deal with your ego today."

"Fine!" Harry said. If Snape was just going to sit there and snipe at him he might as well go back to the flat and toss around pillows in private. He gathered up his robes and held out his hand. " _Accio_ wand!"

Snape didn’t stop him. He was scribbling madly on a piece of parchment, although Harry knew that with OWL’s and NEWT’s over and done with and the students gone for the summer he couldn’t have been marking anything. He pulled his robes about himself tightly and strode out past the wards to Apparate back to London

Instead of practicing his wandless magic, though, he ended up flying about the pitch until midnight.

Night flying was a habit he'd picked up after the war. Back then he often felt too big for his skin, like he was going to do something crazy if he didn't fly until he exhausted himself. But because he was still under high security he hadn’t been allowed to fly just anywhere, so when he and Ron moved to London he asked a local Quidditch team if he could borrow their pitch at night. That was how he'd ended up on the Dulwich Dragons, eventually.

Now he did it when things got to be too much—the media, the pressure inside and out.

When he was too tired to do another lap he lay flat on his back and stared at the stars. They were barely visible in the light from the surrounding city. The Muggle world churned on outside of the flimsy shield as its people went about their business, a parallel line that would never bend to cross his.

_It'll be fine,_ Harry told himself firmly. _I'll go back next week._

The next week Snape didn't show up.

Harry waited for half an hour in the old classroom, doubts chasing each other through his head. Maybe Snape had gotten tired of teaching him. Maybe he’d gone away for the summer and forgotten to tell Harry. Or maybe, Harry thought, he was just being a petty berk.

After an hour he decided he would look for Snape, and if he wasn’t at Hogwarts he would send an owl: _Maybe it’s best that we terminate our agreement._ Short and to the point. Ron was right—it was mad to think of the two of them getting on for two years.

Snape wasn’t in his office, nor in the Great Hall. Harry was in the middle of accepting a plateful of sweets from a House Elf in the kitchen when he realized he truly had no idea where Snape went when he wasn’t working—he didn’t know the way to Snape’s quarters or where he liked to spend his time. When he was in school he’d always imagined Snape hunched at his desk for hours, plotting ways to make Harry’s life miserable. Now he wondered how it was that he’d never thought about the personal life of any Hogwarts staff member for the six years he’d lived there. Maybe that was how they liked it.

He turned to the house elf who was loading him up a plate of pudding.

“Can you tell me how to get to Severus Snape’s rooms?” he asked her.

The House Elf bowed deeply. “Eppy is sorry, but Eppy cannot be telling visitors where a professor’s private quarters are. Eppy will get Master Potter some fresh treacle tarts. Master Potter’s favourite, straight from the oven!”

She hurried off and Harry sighed.

“Massster Potter?” came a voice.

Harry looked about. There were no other House Elves nearby. There was only a small table in this nook of the kitchen, with the four House banners hanging on the wall behind it.

“Look clossssely,” it came again. The voice spoke in Parseltongue, he realized.

He peered at the tapestries. Before his eyes the Slytherin snake unwound itself from the crest.

“You can speak?” he asked.

“Yessss, Master Potter… I ssspeak to those who are worthy.” The snake sounded amused. “I can take you to Sssseverus Snape.”

“Er.” He set the plate of sweets down. “Where is he?”

“I will ssshow you. Follow me.” The snake darted through its two neighbouring tapestries, dodging Gryffindor’s lion as it batted a lazy paw. The eagle of Ravenclaw turned one baleful eye toward it.

“Outsssside,” the snake hissed, disappearing.

Harry went out through the painting of the pear and swung it shut behind him. The snake winked at him from between the plump fruit.

“Why are you helping me?” Harry asked.

“Your magic isss entwined,” the snake said, sliding between the legs of a startled knight in the next painting over. “He hasss your Patronage. He needssss your help. This way…”

Harry followed Slytherin’s snake down the hall and past the Hufflepuff common room, but instead of heading into the dungeon the snake led him up the stairs. He hurried after it. It went up and up, sometimes disappearing from sight, sometimes goading him onward. ”Fasssster, Master Potter.”

They climbed one floor after another. Finally he caught up to it on the sixth floor landing where it draped over the shoulders of a painted witch in green brocade. The witch waved at Harry, mute, and the snake wound tighter around her.

“Down that hallway,” the snake hissed. “Do your duty... Master Ssssnape is troubled.”

It turned away and fell still.

The hall was dark and empty, the wall sconces unlit. It was a part of the school Harry had never been to. This wasn’t unusual in and of itself—in spite of having spent six years at Hogwarts the castle forever revealed new secrets. The weight of the night was reverential rather than ominous.

“ _Lumos_ ,” Harry whispered, holding his wand out to light the way.

He came to a doorway that was lit from behind by a warm, gentle light. He tried the handle but it was locked.

“ _Alohamora_ ,” he murmured. He dispelled a twinge of guilt at breaking in—the snake had said that Snape needed him. And anyway, years of getting into things he shouldn’t was a hard habit to break.

He pushed the door open. Inside was a small room set up to be a Potions lab. There was a workbench along one wall and cupboards above and below it; shelves of potion ingredients; and a large silver cauldron in the very centre of the room over which Snape stood stirring the contents with a long paddle. A cloud of pungent potion fumes enveloped Harry as he entered.

Snape looked up, registering Harry. His face was drawn and tired.

“Potter?”

Harry shut the door behind him. “You didn’t come to the lesson.”

“How did you find me?” Snape demanded.

“I followed the snake from the kitchen,” Harry began.

“Never mind,” Snape interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. Come here and stir this.”

Harry dropped his cloak on the workbench and took the paddle from Snape. The potion was surprisingly thick and hard to stir. A sweet, floral smell rose from its steaming surface.

“Slowly,” Snape said, stepping back. He wiped his sweat-dampened brow. “Keep stirring until the moon rises and the moonlight touches the surface.”

“What are you—?” Harry turned and stopped short. Snape was unbuttoning his outer robes, leaving him in thin white linen pants and a long-sleeved silken shirt. He hung the robes over the back of a chair and sat down on a cot that had been pushed up against the wall underneath the windows.

“I need to sleep,” he said. He lay down with his back to Harry, not bothering to pull the blanket over himself.

Harry’s face grow hot. He looked away quickly and focused on the potion. Snape was just tired—he probably wasn’t thinking about Harry at all.

But he couldn’t help a furtive glance here and there as Snape’s breathing grew soft and the rise and fall of his thin sides deepened. He recognized the shirt and pants as old-fashioned wizard’s underclothes. His blush deepened. His reaction was nothing that bore thinking about straight on—a passing curiosity about what Snape would do if he knew Harry had looked.

_He’d probably get angry_ , Harry thought firmly, and tried to put it out of his mind.

He stirred until his arms ached. Finally, what felt like hours later, the moon rose through the window. Harry forced himself to carry on stirring the thick lavender-coloured sludge until the light brushed the surface. The potion underwent a transformation, as if Harry had mixed the moonlight itself in. The colour slowly darkened until it was a deep charcoal grey, almost black, and it became so thin and clear that it was like water. He took the paddle out and set it on the stand beside the cauldron.

Snape slept on. He had shifted onto his back and his face was upturned, slack and clean of expression in sleep in a way Harry had never seen it. With his arms clasped at his ribs and wearing all white he looked eerily like he did in Harry’s nightmares sometimes when Harry found him dead.

There had been a time directly after the war when it was difficult to be certain who’d lived and who’d died—before the formal reports came out, before the funerals, everyone lived in a state of suspension. One day you might hear that your classmate had been murdered by Death Eaters, the next that the man who’d bled out in front of you was alive in the hospital. Harry had a lot of dreams in that time about the dead and dying. When Hermione wrote him from Australia that Snape was alive she told him to visit, and Harry knew he should—but the burden of mutual debt was too heavy. In the end he couldn’t go.

Sitting in Snape’s private brewing room watching him sleep felt surreal. Like Snape was a ghost and he couldn’t touch him to be sure he was alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're snowed in today so I was able to edit another chapter. Thank you to everyone who's left kudos and comments - I love reading your thoughts and I'm excited to share the rest of the story with you.


	7. Poison

“Snape. Snape—Severus.” Someone was shaking his shoulder. “It’s morning.”

Severus woke from his deep sleep with a jolt and sat upright. “The potion!” he cried.

“It’s fine,” said Potter. “It turned black and watery.”

His shoulders dropped with relief. “Excellent. That’s the correct consistency.”

It was then he realized he was in his underclothes in front of Potter, an unthinkably inappropriate state. He stood to retrieve his robes from the back of the chair and dressed swiftly. Potter leaned back in the other chair and looked elsewhere, as if Severus had modesty to preserve.

“I thought I hallucinated your presence,” he said.

He had been awake for nearly sixty hours by then. The potion needed almost constant tending or else it would be spoiled and months of work would go to waste. What had he been thinking? He had entrusted that crucial step to Potter and gone to sleep.

Dawn had risen—he'd slept the whole night. The smell of bacon drifted to him and he spied the remnants of a plate of breakfast on the floor. Another covered plate sat on the bench.

"A house elf brought breakfast for us," Potter said. "Don't worry, I didn't contaminate any potions ingredients."

Had Potter slept? There was no sign of it. Instead it looked as though Potter had been poking around. The workbench was littered with papers—his papers, covered in notes and equations. The notes were not of a personal nature, exactly, but he had written them assuming no other eyes would see them.

Potter held one parchment in his hand—a flyer that Severus had written all over the back of.

"I was curious, so I read some of your notes,” Potter said, utterly unapologetic. “You were trying to get into the Room of Requirements.”

Severus let it slide, unable to muster a scathing comment on Potter’s nosiness. He was too tired to be angry. “Yes. In the past, the Room of Requirements supplied me with certain... rare ingredients that I was unable to acquire elsewhere,” he said. "But the room eludes me. It has closed itself off. The Fiendfyre rages still, and it may be many years before anyone is able to get inside."

It had been a blow to finally accept that the Room was closed. He had relied heavily on it for crucial potions ingredients during the war when it wasn’t safe for him to visit apothecaries, such as when he needed wolfsbane for Lupin. Now that it was perpetually dangerous for him to leave Hogwarts and the kinds of places he once would have found the most valuable ingredients were anathema to him, he needed the Room more than ever.

Potter flipped the paper over. “What's Claigheall?" he asked, holding it up to show the advert on the back. It read: ‘ _Claigheall: the largest gathering of merchandisers in Britain!’_ Potter had an uncanny eye for detail, though he was far from detail-oriented. He excelled at finding the most troublesome pieces of information and making the maximum fuss about them.

"A Potions Master and Apothecarist convention," Severus told him. "I would have been able to put coin into the Room and have it return the wares from my preferred sellers there."

Potter frowned. "Why not have someone go in person to buy what you need?"

"I don't trust anyone to do it." Severus dismissed the idea out of hand. "It is too delicate a task. When I’ve had apprentices they would occasionally purchase ingredients for me, but the results are poor even when the person is skilled at Potions. The Room is able to pull the _sense_ of the ingredients directly from my mind. It is the best approximation of going to such an event in person."

Potions was far too tailored to each person's skill, style, and even magical ability. Someone with a more delicate signature like Draco might choose ingredients that were large, heavy and potent to counteract his magic, such that picking up another type of ingredient would feel wrong. For Severus, on the other hand, such a selection would make the brew nippy and sharp, too strong to be of use. Severus allowed the house elves to stock the classroom cabinets, but his own private stores were almost all ingredients he had selected himself. For a complex and difficult brew like this one it would simply be a waste of time to send someone in his stead.

Severus finished buttoning up his robe and went to check on the potion. It was, as Potter had said, clear and dark, like watered down ink. Potter had done the step correctly. It had an indefinable fragrance to it now which made his breath catch in his throat as he leaned over the cauldron. He was close—very close. But it would have to sit in stasis until he could find the right ingredients.

“I could accompany you to Claigheall,” Potter said. “It's part of our agreement, isn't it? Being your bodyguard.”

“That agreement covers excursions into the Forbidden Forest and—situations like last night.” Potter went red in the face at that. Interesting. “For which I ought to thank you, I suppose. But Claigheall is a gathering of hundreds of people, many of whom have Dark allegiances. I don’t doubt that there will be Death Eaters in attendance. It would be ridiculous to take the risk, especially weakened as I am.”

“Sounds like exactly the kind of job I’m good at,” Potter said with a grin.

The potion Severus was brewing had three parts. Two contained relatively tame ingredients and didn’t require anything so precious as the light of the full moon on the longest night of the year, but both were complicated and touchy and could be made easier with a second pair of hands. Since Potter had proved a passable assistant, Severus gave in and enlisted him for the next month.

“No lessons?” Potter asked.

“I expect you to practice at home, but until you’ve mastered the controlled movement of objects I see little purpose in individual lessons. You are clearly not helped by my overseeing your efforts and I have better things to do.”

Potter slouched down in his seat. “Well, I guess you’re right. What sort of things do you want me to do? Cleaning cauldrons, I expect.”

“I have a limited number of cauldrons and I’m quite capable of cleaning them myself,” Severus said, amused. “We will be brewing the second and third parts of this potion. I need someone to chop and stir and generally follow instructions.”

“Ahh.” Potter perked up a bit. “Alright. What’s the potion?”

“It’s… something new,” Severus said evasively. “Something I’ve been researching.”

“What does it do?”

He silently cursed Potter’s lack of tact or proper upbringing. A Malfoy or a Parkinson would have understood not to keep prying.

“It is a restorative of sorts,” he said at last, and then changed the subject. “Meet me in the room on the sixth floor—I will need to fetch some things from my personal quarters.”

Severus set up both potions at once to save time and since he had someone to help. He put Potter to work brewing the first potion. The initial steps were fairly foolproof and Potter was certainly capable of following instructions if they were handed to him on a sheet of paper and he wasn’t otherwise distracted by the fate of the world, or some tedious inter-House grudge match between Gryffindor and Slytherin.

“Reminds me of sixth year,” Potter said, carefully measuring three spoonfuls of beetle eyes into the cauldron. They sank with a gentle murmur. This potion was talkative, Severus had found; it whispered and gurgled, and even loosened the tongue. “Following the instructions from your book.”

“Ah, yes. Cheating your way to an Outstanding.” Severus smirked. “Very Slytherin of you.”

“It wasn’t cheating! It was augmented learning. If everyone had had your book we would have learned so much more,” he said. “It made me wonder, later—why not write your own textbook? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about students mucking up so badly.”

“There are many reasons not to invest the time and effort into such a thankless task,” Severus said, “not the least of which is the fact that, were I to write such a book, it would be nearly useless to anyone who wasn’t me. As we’ve already discussed, Potions is highly personalized—like any area of magic. The textbooks I teach from cater to the general student, but to master Potions you must listen to your own intuition on the matter.”

Potter frowned, puzzled. “But I used your instructions.”

“Yes, well, you’ve always insisted on being different.” Severus bent to his potion.

Was Potter an idiot, or merely fishing for compliments? His raw strength was enough that he would never have trouble imitating another wizard, even one whose signature tended toward unusual like Severus himself. An aptitude toward Potions was uncommon but mastery of all the arts was simply unreachable for most wizards, where Potter could but hold out his hand and the world all but bent to his whim. If he ever learned to harness his power he would become a force to be reckoned with.

“How much do you know of the Irvine Rating Scale of Ability?” he asked.

“Er, nothing,” Potter said. “Should I have heard of it? It sounds like something Hermione ought to have mentioned.”

“Many Muggleborns don’t know of it,” said Severus dismissively. “It’s a series of tests which measure magical skill, aptitude, and strength. These are the three things that make up your magical signature: skill, which is learned over your lifetime; aptitude, your natural inclination toward a certain type of magic; and strength, your innate ability to perform. In more recent decades the Irvine tests have been replaced by OWL’s and NEWT’s.”

“I haven’t done my NEWT’s. Not sure if I will, though. Is this test a sort of equivalent?”

“It is much more rigorous,” Severus said. “I will give you my book on the subject.”

“Did you do the tests?” Potter asked.

“At the time when it would have been appropriate I was mired in… other troubles.”

“Being a Death Eater,” Potter said bluntly.

He sighed. “Indeed.”

And with that their conversation came to an end. Potter’s potion rose to a noisy rolling simmer and mercifully it became too loud to talk. After three hundred counterclockwise circles Potter added the last ingredient: the Night-Blooming Glory.

“That’s the end of the instructions,” he said.

“What do you think it needs now?” Severus prompted.

“It feels like it needs to rest,” Potter answered.

He nodded, pleased. “That’s correct. Now we leave it for a week to grow more potent.”

Potter began cleaning up his station unprompted, which was equally pleasing in its own way. He swept the leavings into a bin for the house elves to dispose of and put the bottles of ingredients back into their alphabetized places.

He was silent but the silence was expectant. He seemed to be bracing himself to say something.

“Do you regret becoming a Death Eater?” he asked finally.

Severus tensed. It had never become easier over the years to talk about the confluence of circumstances that had driven him to the Dark Arts, and Potter was perhaps the last person he wanted to discuss any of it with—the misery of his life at Spinner’s End, the broken promises of the wizarding world. The painful process of learning that, at some point, every misstep fell on his own head. They were things he had put into boxes and shelved in his mind. If he looked in the Mirror of Erised he knew he would see all of his regrets laid bare around him: Lily, Albus, the Dark Lord, his mother, even Potter himself. It was better not to look.

“Regret can drive you mad,” he said. “There is no sense in dwelling on what could have been.”

“Sounds like something Dumbledore would have said,” Potter remarked.

“I learned from the best,” he said dryly. Albus had been the master of compartmentalization in his own way. He had ruled his mind with an iron fist. Severus was thankful for that lesson, at least.

For three consecutive weeks Potter worked through the instructions Severus gave him at the start of every session. On the fourth week Severus fell ill. He had been so caught up in checking and re-checking his research that he’d forgotten to take his potions that afternoon, and by the time Potter arrived it was too late. The next part of the brew required intense concentration and impeccable timing, and there would be no pausing for anything once they begun.

A large part of him still wanted to keep the extent of his weakness a secret—it would be irrelevant anyway once the final potion was complete. In the meantime, he justified, it was nobody’s business but his own.

But as the evening lengthened Severus found himself struggling to concentrate. His magic was depleted as an almost physical reaction to the potion. Ironic that the very thing that was meant to restore him was costing him so much.

When he collapsed, Potter abandoned his cauldron and rushed to his side. He caught Severus before he hit the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Potter demanded.

“Mind your potion,” he grunted, trying to push Potter off, but his grip on Severus was firm.

“The potion is fine. You’re obviously not. Have you been sleeping?” Potter steered him toward the cot.

“It’s not a lack of sleep,” Severus said. He sat heavily on the mattress. “It’s the poison. It takes a heavy toll on my magic.”

Potter ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “How did you manage to brew the last potion?”

“There is a restorative draught I can take. I missed a dose today. There is nothing to do but take an extra dose and rest.”

He could see the moment it clicked in Potter’s mind. He was not an idiot, no matter how often Severus despaired of his common sense. “That’s what this potion is, isn’t it? You’re brewing something to restore your magic.”

There was no point in lying. He supposed Potter deserved to know, in a way, for Severus was contractually bound to him as a magical mentor and he was clearly not up to the task. He’d been unable to teach him wandless magic as they had agreed, besides their silly lessons, and now he relied on Potter to finish the most basic tasks that he himself ought to be able to handle.

“If it works, yes. It’s highly unlikely I will ever return to my previous level of power. I may forever be handicapped. But if the potion is successful it will give me some semblance of normalcy.” He paused. “However, I must warn you that if it is unsuccessful… I will have to end this Patronage. I have refrained from pushing my limits for three years, but it’s clear to me now that I lack the magical strength to help you and test you as a Patron should. You should begin considering other options,” he said, the words bitter on his tongue. “I am prepared to help you find a replacement Patron who is to your liking.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I think you can ‘test’ me plenty without using your own magic,” Potter said, as wilfully obtuse as he ever was in school. “And anyway, I don’t want another Patron.”

“Your loyalty is misplaced,” Severus said coolly. “There’s no reason you couldn’t find someone more suited—”

“I’d rather do without a Patron altogether, if that’s how it has to be.” Potter turned away to start cleaning. “We won’t know until you can find the ingredients to finish the potion, though.”

He was right.

“Then we must go to Claigheall,” said Severus, resigned.


	8. Claigheall

“So I’m going away for the weekend,” Harry said casually over breakfast Friday morning, and Ron and Hermione fell silent.

“Away how?” Ron furrowed his brow.

“On a trip. Snape and I are going to the Potions Master and Apothecarist convention in the Highlands.” He busied himself putting jam on his toast to avoid their twin stares. “Neville and Luna are coming, too.”

“Really?” Ron looked astonished, and Harry was uncomfortably reminded that he didn’t often—or really ever—do things without Ron.

“Yeah, the Apothecary master is sending Luna to stock up and Neville wants to look for some rare plant breed.”

Harry had asked them earlier in the week, figuring there would be strength in numbers. He’d been strangely reluctant to tell Ron and Hermione—he had a feeling that they still didn’t understand why he’d chosen Snape as his Patron, for which he couldn’t blame them. He was uncertain enough about his own reasons that he didn’t want to talk about it.

“That doesn’t sound very safe,” Hermione interjected. “A place like that is bound to be full of Dark wizards.”

“Not everyone who uses Dark magic is a Death Eater,” Harry said.

“Don’t be naive!” she said, sitting up straight. “There are plenty of people who’d be happy to see you _both_ dead, whether or not they were ever officially Marked by You-Know-Who.”

“I can take care of myself,” he snapped. “And so can Snape.”

“She has a point—waltzing into a camp full of Dark wizards doesn’t sound like a good idea for you _or_ Snape,” said Ron. “It’s different for Nev and Luna. Although if they’re going with you they might be in danger, too.”

Harry stood, his appetite suddenly gone. “I’m going and that’s final. If you two are done weighing in, I have Quidditch practice to get to.”

“We’re not ‘ _weighing in_ ’, Harry, we’re trying to look out for you,” Hermione protested.

“I don’t need looking out for,” Harry said, smacking his hand on the table. “For once in my life, I need people to let me decide things for myself!”

Hermione huffed. “Well! Since you’re not interested in listening to reason, I guess nobody can stop you anyway!”

She pushed her chair back and strode out of the room. Harry heard the front door slam and the loud crack of Apparition from the hallway.

Ron got up. “Sorry,” he said. “I should go after her.”

“Fine,” Harry said tiredly.

He paused in the doorway. “You know you don’t have to do this for Snape, right? There are other ways to find rare potions ingredients. George orders all of his straight from the distributors.”

“I _want_ to do it,” Harry said. “It’s part of our agreement.”

Ron nodded. “Well, I still think you’re nutters for wanting to have anything to do with him, but maybe we were a bit out of line. It’s your Patronage, anyway.”

The day of the Portkey dawned in late July. Harry informed Dalton that he’d miss summer practice for two days and packed a bag. According to Snape the gathering was so massive that one day wouldn’t do. They would camp overnight at the site. On Harry’s part he was just as happy not to have to take a Portkey two days in a row. He was nervous—he wasn’t sure if it was the potential danger they’d be in or the idea of sharing a tent with Snape. Neither reason made much sense to him.

The four of them—Snape, himself, Neville and Luna—met in Hogsmeade. It was a sweltering day at the tail end of a heat wave and even in Scotland everyone was looking a little wilted. Snape, on the other hand, was fully buttoned in his usual black robes and showed no sign of being affected by the heat.

Neville fidgeted while they waited for the Portkey to activate, casting Snape apprehensive glances, but for the most part Snape ignored him. He’d not been pleased to hear that they would be accompanied by Harry’s friends, but Harry pointed out that if nothing else the two of them would be useful if they got into trouble, to which Snape begrudgingly agreed.

The site of the gathering was socked in with fog when they arrived, gloomy though it was the height of summer. They set up the two tents on the edge of the grounds, far enough from anyone else that Harry could put up his own wards to repel anyone from approaching. Harry was glad for Neville’s help—he’d done this before and it was tiring work. They set a notice-me-not spell and several versions of a keep-away, and on the off chance that someone got through those Harry also set up the early warning system that Hermione had taught him while they’d been on the run in the Forbidden Forest during the war.

When they finished setting up the wards he and Snape set off toward one end of the camp and Neville and Luna headed in the other direction. Luna assured him they had their Protean Galleons and they’d come quickly if Snape and Harry ran into trouble.

Claigheall was larger than Harry could have expected: three miles of tents, pavilions, and hastily erected shacks that were bigger on the inside than the outside. There were witches and wizards from all over the world hawking their wares. Severus strode right past most of them while for his part Harry tried not to goggle like a first year in Hogsmeade. It was a village all of its own.

It wasn’t just Potions ingredients, either. There were sellers of exotic pets which had him staring, greenhouses full of carnivorous plants, and even a wand-maker selling wands of acacia and ebony who winked at him as he passed.

“New wand for you, Mr. Potter?” she called. “Heartwood and a centaur’s tail hairs to protect you against the future?”

Harry shook his head and hurried away.

“Does your celebrity follow you everywhere, Potter?” Snape asked, although he sounded exasperated rather than annoyed.

“How do you think I feel?” Harry asked.

“This one,” Snape said abruptly, stopping outside a hut that looked like it was built out of massive feathers, each the length of Harry’s arm. A smoky glass door was inset into the front.

“Maybe I should wait out here and keep an eye out,” Harry said, hesitating. He hoped Snape didn’t plan to use him as a bargaining chip—he wasn’t eager to fend off overzealous sales wizards all day.

“For Merlin’s sake, Potter, I don’t need you to stand outside like a guard dog. Moreau is much more likely to sell to me if he sees me touting around a winsome young man on my arm,” Snape said. “Did you or did you not come along to help?”

Harry felt his cheeks redden. “Er, I suppose.”

“It’s not as if it’s contagious,” he snapped. “Just flutter your eyelashes and tell him I’m your Patron.”

Was Snape really telling him to _flirt_ with the shopkeeper? Harry balked. He’d never used his fame to get so much as a toothpick. But it was because of him that they’d come in the first place, and it would be for nothing if Snape couldn’t buy what he needed, so he followed him inside.

He found himself inside a room that looked like an oversized birdcage from underneath. From this side he could see the spines and the silvery undersides of the feathers laid over a massive wooden frame. It smelled faintly of bird musk, like the Owlery at Hogwarts. The massive skull of some sort of raptor dominated the far wall, its lethal-looking beak curving down toward a stool where a diminutive man sat. He perked up when they entered and hopped off the stool.

“Come in, come in,” he said in a smooth, accented baritone. “My word… is that Severus Snape?”

He lifted a gold monocle to his eye and squinted at Snape. From up close Harry could see that he was older than he looked at first glance which, in wizard years, probably meant he was somewhere upwards of ninety. His hair was dark and swept back cleanly from his temple and he wore an equally dark robe, which gave him the air of a funeral director.

Snape bowed deeply. “Monsieur Moreau. It has been a long time.”

Moreau yanked Snape out of his bow and into an uncomfortable-looking embrace. “Indeed, too long! I have been hearing some interesting things about you. The papers were full of that business with the Dark Lord a few years ago… very nasty stuff. I must admit there was a little betting pool going around the Potioneer’s society about whether or not you still lived!”

He gave Snape one last pat on the back and released him. Snape rose stiffly.

“I hope you won a great deal of gold,” said Snape.

“Oh, yes,” said Moreau quickly. “You are a tenacious bastard. Like a cockroach—step on him and he springs back up to live another day. I always knew you’d make it out alive. So, my boy, who is your lovely companion?”

Moreau turned to Harry and grasped his hand, pressing it to his lips with a mischievous smile. His hands were cold and dry. Harry tried not to grimace, both at the act and the tactless words.

“Harry Potter,” he said. “You might have heard of me from the articles about all the ‘nasty stuff’ going on in wizarding Britain, like war and genocide.”

Moreau let go of Harry’s hand and gave Snape a conspiratory look. “Ah, an athlete _and_ a left-wing idealist. How quaint! Where did you pick this one up?”

Harry bristled, but Snape put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Mr Potter is a former student of mine.”

“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth, trying to remember why he was there. “Severus generously agreed to become my Patron after I left school.”

“I’m sure it was generosity that drove him,” Moreau chortled. “You know, not many Patrons are bold enough to go the traditionalist approach anymore. I appreciate that.”

“What’s the traditionalist approach—?” Harry began, and Severus tightened his fingers warningly.

“I haven’t much time to waste,” he said, interrupting Harry. “Let’s get to business.”

“Oh, yes. Certainly.” Moreau hurried over to the wall behind the counter and began pulling down wooden boxes. “What sort of temperament are you looking for this visit? Passionate? Docile? Perhaps a little virility?”

“Something more complex,” Snape said, ignoring the last. “Strongly forward with a lasting effect. The potion in question is meant to impart lifelong effects.”

“Not inventing again, are you?” Moreau turned, his eyes lighting up. “I have several customers who’d be interested in a Severus Snape special.”

“This isn’t for commercial use,” Snape said dismissively. “It’s far too specialized.”

“Hmm, a commission. I understand.” Moreau pulled down a few other boxes. “I may have the right thing for you. Young Potter, do sit down. Your Master is in good hands—don’t look so tense. It isn’t as if I could steal him away!”

Harry fought to keep his expression neutral. Hermione liked to suggest that he was easily riled up, but he’d like to see her resist the urge to wipe the smirk off this smarmy git’s face. He took the proffered seat and tried to focus on the curious array of things that Moreau was bringing out instead.

“Hippogriff talons,” Snape said as Moreau strode off again. He lifted the massive claw out of its nest of cedar shavings, effectively distracting Harry. It was nearly as big around as Harry’s head.

“This is a hippogriff?” he asked incredulously.

“A French lineage. They are the largest in the world—as dangerous as some dragons. In the past I have brewed potions for Moreau which allow them to be sedated so they will mate without tearing each others’ heads off.”

“Hagrid would kill to get ahold of one of those,” Harry said grimly.

“They are, of course, highly restricted. Only two are ever alive at one time.” Snape closed the box. “And their body parts are monitored by the French Minister of Magical Creatures, since there is a particularly terrible spell that can raise a beast from the dead with enough of its magical essence.”

“Minister Audebert and I are on very good terms,” said Moreau, dropping another armful of boxes onto the counter. “Don’t worry, Mr Potter. This is strictly a legal trade.”

Harry doubted that, but he kept his mouth shut with great effort. _He_ wasn’t the one taking a degree in law; he was just a little league Quidditch player, as far as the world was concerned now. It wasn’t his business.

By the time they left the hut the vendor had managed to insult both Harry and Snape in a backhanded way at least three times more, after which Harry lost count. He miraculously kept his temper and didn’t tell him to stuff it, but when they left he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“How can you let someone talk to you like that?” He strode away. Snape kept up easily—he still had half a head on Harry.

“Do shelve your fragile Gryffindor sensibilities, Potter. Moreau is the least offensive wizard you’re likely to meet here,” Snape said. “Surely your ego can handle being insulted by the likes of him.”

“It’s not that. He thinks you’re some sort of—old pervert, like him!” Harry burst out, whirling to face Snape. “I don’t know how you can just stand there and let him insinuate things like that.”

Snape grimaced, and Harry belatedly recognized a flash of hurt on his face. His stomach dropped with the realization that he’d made some fundamental miscalculation.

“Moreau is fully aware of my… inclinations in that direction,” said Snape. “It’s not as though he is inventing things out of whole cloth.”

Harry’s insides did something complicated.

“Your what?”

Snape’s back was ramrod straight. “I prefer the company of men. I’m sure you’re not ignorant of the things that students say behind my back.”

“No, but—” Harry bit his lip. It was true—he had heard people call Snape a pouf and a queer, but he’d never put any stock in it. It was the type of thing someone like Justin Finch-Fletchley or Oliver Wood would come up with out of the blue which Harry always pretended he didn’t hear. It made him feel sick, like it did now. “Students also said that you slept hanging upside-down like a great bat.”

“Ah, yes, that’s a flattering one.” Snape sneered. “We have plenty more to do, Potter. Will this be a problem?”

“It’s not that. I’m just surprised,” Harry said lamely, thrown off-balance. He fumbled for something to say. “Charlie Weasley is gay—I don’t have any problem with it. I just never thought… well…”

“One of your teachers could be gay? A Death-Eater? Your Patron?” Snape asked stiffly. “I am not here to coddle you. If you’re no longer interested in maintaining our agreement because of this then have out with it.”

Harry folded his arms. “Of course I don’t want to end it! It has nothing to do with this. Fine, let’s get going.”

He would think about this later. Much later, possibly in the privacy of his own room in the London flat, where he could work through it properly in his head without getting all muddled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What *is* the traditionalist approach, one wonders?


	9. Death Eaters in the Vale

It didn’t escape Severus’s notice that Potter was exceedingly quiet the rest of the day. Now that it had all come out in the open he wasn’t sure what had possessed him to put Potter as a buffer between himself and Moreau. He was by no means the most lecherous fellow that Severus had ever had to deal with in the International Potioneers Society, but he was probably more than Potter’s Gryffindor sensibilities could handle. Perhaps he’d subconsciously wanted to test Potter—to regain his equilibrium in their unwieldy relationship. To position them on opposite sides of the table once more.

When they went to bed on separate sides of the large bedroom in Severus’s tent he excused himself to the sitting room to change in order to spare himself the awkwardness. He undressed slowly and hung his clothes in the wardrobe, giving Potter the time to do the same. When he came back Potter was curled with his back to the door and the covers pulled up to his shoulders, his shock of black hair sticking out. He lay very still though Severus knew he wasn’t asleep.

Well, what had he expected? He ought to have been wondering first and foremost why he was so disappointed by Potter’s reaction. It was, after all, several steps up from Potter the senior calling him a dirty queer in sixth year. Or Lucius Malfoy’s revulsion in the face of his advances.

He had to accept some culpability of his own, and that was perhaps the worst of it. A part of him had wanted to know if Potter would fall into the role easily—if he would go soft under Severus’s hand, if his gaze would settle on him with fake fondness, if he would turn on his brightest, most ridiculous grin and play along. That was the utter drivel that consumed Severus’s thoughts these days—since he’d woken with Potter in his potions room—and he was eager to excise it from his mind.

The sun rose and the fog cleared on the morning of the following day. When Severus rose Potter was still ensconced in his bed and showed no signs of stirring. He left him asleep and went into the other room to change. Lovegood met him outside the tent with a plate of breakfast which he refused as gracefully as he was able. He didn’t care to muster up any pleasantries or thanks.

Nevertheless she smiled at him. “Would you take it to Harry, then?”

“He’s asleep,” Severus said, stalling.

“Neville and I would like to get an early start and we’re packing up soon. He’ll be upset if he misses it,” she cajoled, unintimidated by his scowl.

“Oh, very well.” She was going to stand there until he agreed. He took the proffered plate and ducked back into the tent. He placed it on the sideboard in the main room and went to wake Potter.

Potter stirred but didn’t rouse when Severus leaned over and gripped his shoulder.

“Potter, wake up.” He shook the protruding appendage gently.

Potter batted his hand away. “Five more minutes,” he mumbled.

“As I am not an alarm clock, you cannot order me about like one. If you don’t wake I’ll feed your breakfast to the wild flobberworms.”

“Flobberworms aren’t native to Scotland.” Potter rolled over and opened his eyes, blinking groggily. “Severus?”

“Yes, we spent the night in a tent in a Highland valley, if you recall.” Severus stepped back. That gaze wasn’t wary or disturbed by his closeness, but better to be safe anyway. It was far too piercing for comfort.

“I remember,” said Potter. He sat up. His chest was bare, showing a dusting of dark hair and a lot of golden skin.

“Don’t be too long,” Severus told him, and hurried out of the room in the most disgraceful manner.

They set out toward the eastern half of the Claigheall that day. Although Potter had been on high alert for enemies the day before—and Severus himself was tensely waiting for the Knut to drop—they had seen nothing and no one that could be considered a real threat. In hindsight he should have seen this as its own warning. Preoccupied as he was by Potter’s standoffish behaviour, he failed to listen to his instincts.

His quest took them to the far end of the valley where tents were sparse and the goods strange. More heads turned in the wake of their passage. Wary eyes watched them. This was the grey domain where one had to assume the items on display were of questionable source, and where the payment demanded was not always in gold. Potter grew tense again and stared too long into every shadow. He looked on the verge of demanding that they turn back, so Severus pressed on quickly. He knew what he was looking for.

At last he stopped before a large tent with a weighty black-and-red banner. The vendor therein was someone whose loyalties Severus had never quite been able to pin down, but the quality of his wares was inimitable.

Elgias Corbin had left his Potions career in England in the eighties amidst rumours that he was dealing illegal substances to certain persons of interest, and upon arriving in Italy he promptly started up a trade in magical beasts—live, not dead and in parts. Severus had often found those who dealt in live animals to be unpredictable. Most were at least ambivalent to the pain of living things. Some enjoyed it.

Ordinarily he would avoid Corbin’s tent, but today he’d had abysmal luck and he knew Corbin would stock exactly the type of rare substances he was looking for—snake venoms, Acromantula excretions, and other such potent poisons.

“Stay out here,” he told Potter.

Potter looked up at the tall, crooked black pavilion which loomed over its neighbours. Two sleek double-tailed Dobermans were chained near the entrance. Corbin’s banner proclaimed ‘Rare poisons for rarer potions’ and ‘Deadly housepets to dazzle your guests’ in red ink.

“This seems safe,” Potter remarked. “I’m sure a guy who claims to have ‘the most venomous beetles north of Australia’ is absolutely not a Dark wizard who’d love nothing more than to set those beetles on you.”

Severus was unmoved by Potter’s sarcasm. “Corbin will know who you are, unlike Moreau. He’ll laugh me out of his shop if you accompany me inside.”

“That seems like more of a reason to go in with you,” Potter pointed out.

“If you wish to interrupt our trade and render this whole exercise pointless, by all means,” he sneered. The tension in the air made him sharp-tongued, a familiar and repellent personality trait rearing its head.

Potter sighed. “Fine. I guess I don’t have much choice. Just—be careful.”

He left Potter flipping his Protean Galleon between his fingers as he kept an eye on the Crups, who seemed content to ignore him. He didn’t tell Potter how easy it would be for someone like Corbin to overwhelm him. He was doing his best not to dwell on it.

Inside the pavilion was as dark and gloomy as outside. The size of the space was obfuscated by spells to make one’s eyes glance away. Long, heavy tapestries hung from the high ceiling to dampen the sound, which depicted crudely embroidered battles and men being subjugated beneath a yoke—the type of Muggle historical artifact that some wizards found fascinating. A rickety staircase spiralled upward to the second floor where a man appeared at the balcony as Severus entered.

He was tall and thin, with wisps of hair which was combed back over his pate and a pair of small round glasses perched on his nose. He peered down at Severus in surprise.

“Master Corbin.” Severus greeted him by his former title, the one he had known Corbin by the longest.

“My word, Master Snape. What an awfully long time since we last met.” He descended the staircase. “If I recall, it was at this very same gathering after the Dark Lord’s first ignominious defeat which found us in the same room—that lecture on slow-acting potions by Griselda Hayworth, was it not?”

“Excellent memory, as always,” said Severus.

“I believe we had something of a disagreement.” Corbin came to the bottom of the stairs. He looked down at Severus from his great height but did not meet his eye. A smart man, fully aware that Severus was a trained Legilimens. “You were of the opinion that a non-lethal potion could impart greater suffering, so the regulation ought to be stricter than for a potion by which one would eventually die.”

“A potion causing death would be quickly symptomatic, regardless of its acting period, so affected parties are more likely to seek medical care. Yes, I recall.”

Corbin smiled thinly at his response.

“Still the same curious fellow, then. I never could get a read on you, Master Snape.”

“I’ll consider that a compliment.”

“By all means. What brings you to my shop today? Looking for some live elements to bring a little pizazz to your potions?”

“Actually, I’m here for a poison,” he said.

Corbin raised an eyebrow. “Even more curious. Why, the last I heard you landed at Death’s door when the Dark Lord’s pet emptied her pustulant sacs into you. One would think such an experience would have driven you away from the fatal embrace of snakes and spiders.”

“One would be wrong,” Severus said flatly.

Corbin shrugged. “Very well. Far be it from me to judge your fetishes. Here, let us go into the back room. Don’t be afraid, Master Snape. It’s quite safe. All of the beasties are behind spell and lock.”

He lifted the curtain, which fluttered in an intangible breeze, and Severus followed him through it into the back. The crowded, enclosed room stank with a heightened mix of animal fear and feces. Witch-lights had been set up in place of lamps to lend the place an eerie blue glow. Corbin led him down the row and past a massive snake in a glass enclosure which raised its head at their passage and seemed to observe him. His skin crawled and he turned away quickly. Its sharp, intelligent gaze reminded him of Nagini, whose origins had been a matter of rumour handed around the Death Eater cohort. There were several ways to force someone to take and maintain an animal form, all of them punishable by Azkaban.

“Don’t pay any attention to old Boris,” said Corbin, gesturing him on. “He’s an ill-tempered beastie. I fear I will have to sell him for meat one day. No, what you’re looking for is here… the venomous two-headed taipan. Portkeyed in directly from the Australian colony.”

He pulled a heavy black cloth off the terrarium that sat on a stand in the middle of the room. Inside, an unassuming brown snake lay docile at the bottom of the sand. It appeared to be an ordinary beast, but when Corbin reached a hand in to tap the inside of the glass its head darted up and Severus saw that a second head had been concealed against the sand. Corbin withdrew his hand quickly and slid the enclosing lid back on.

“Two heads gives it twice as much of a temper,” he said. “One vial of venom could kill a hundred men.”

“Have you milked it?” Severus asked.

Corbin smiled thinly. “Oh, no. Most of my customers prefer to do the milking themselves.”

Severus nodded. “I’ll take it.”

“Very good—” Corbin began, but he was interrupted by a ruckus outside that came muffled through the wards on the room. Severus turned to see Potter burst through the curtain.

“Death Eaters!” he shouted. The witch-lights flickered. “They’re here! I stunned Amycus Carrow but there are more behind him—and they’ve sent up the Dark Mark.”

“Harry Potter.” Corbin loomed behind Severus. “What unusual company you keep these days, Master Snape. Always playing both sides, aren’t you? Such a clever spy.”

He raised his wand, a long, crooked thing as white as a bone. “ _Inanimus_!”

The spell shot toward Potter and hit him in the chest, and he stumbled. Severus turned on Corbin unthinkingly.

“ _Incarcerous_!”

Thick ropes erupted from his wand and bound Corbin tightly around his arms and legs, sending him flying backwards into a display of spiders. Their spherical enclosures bounced to the floor all around him. Potter was choking, clutching his chest.

“What did you do?” Severus demanded, advancing on Corbin.

Corbin laughed. “Can’t you do anything to help him? Poor boy. Did Nagini get your tongue?”

“Tell me!” Severus raised his wand high.

“They’re in here,” Corbin called in a reedy voice. From the main room Severus heard familiar voices—Dolohov and Carrow the elder.

Potter had slumped against the wall next to the massive snake. His eyes bulged and his hands scrabbled at his throat as the effect of the unknown spell took hold. In a panic, Severus turned his wand on the boy.

“ _Finite Incantum_!”

A roaring filled his ears. He felt the spell travel through him viscerally and out his wand like a physical thing, an icy river sweeping through his veins carrying far more power than he should have at his disposal. Potter took a gasping breath instantly and dove for his wand. Next to him Boris the snake began to writhe and twitch.

“Look out!” Potter wheezed, pointing his wand at Severus’s feet. “ _Arania Exumai_!”

The spiders had escaped their magical prisons and swarmed about the floor, confused. Potter’s spell sent them scurrying outward in all directions. There was a choked moan from Corbin and he wriggled where he was bound in an attempt to roll away, but the spiders clambered over him and out beyond the curtain. Around them, the internal structure of the tent began to rattle alarmingly.

Potter staggered upright. “What’s going on?”

Severus grabbed him by the arm to steady him. “The magical structure of the tent is breaking down.”

“Your _Finite incantum_ ended the spell that keeps it together,” Potter guessed.

“It must have. We need to leave.”

“They’re right outside—it isn’t safe.” Potter cast about for another exit.

Severus turned to the back wall where the spider display had been. “ _Reducto_!”

That rush of strength was gone; he hardly made a dent. But Potter got the idea.

“ _Reducto!_ ” He mirrored Severus’s wand movement. The wood splintered and burst outward in a man-shaped hole and Potter scrambled through.

“They’re getting away!” Corbin shrieked.

Severus turned just in time to catch Amycus Carrow coming through into the back room. His face was swollen and shiny and it was clear he could barely see through the slits of his eyes. Severus ducked through the hole in the wall and Potter helped him over the rubble as Carrow looked about wildly.

“Your damned insects bit me!” he roared at Corbin.

“The hole! They’ve gone through the hole!” Corbin gasped.

The tent shuddered and began to splinter around the hole they’d created as Carrow fumbled his way toward them.

“This way,” Potter said, pointing to a gap in the trees. He hurried after Potter.

There was a crack very nearby and Severus spun to face the new threat, but it was only Longbottom, looking scared and carrying a huge cactus in one hand and his wand in the other.

“Harry!” he said, and Potter turned. “We saw the Dark Mark—”

Lovegood appeared a second later, cutting him off. “Professor, what happened?”

“There’s no time. To the trees,” Severus said, ushering them all before him.

They rushed toward the relative shelter of the tree line. Behind them the tent let out a great groaning and creaking and began to bulge out of its enclosing spell dangerously. With a noise like several fireworks going off at once it exploded abruptly outward.

Potter and his two friends ducked. Shrapnel of wood, plaster and glass flew at them as the spell’s energies carried the material away from the epicenter of the explosion.

Severus covered his head and cried, “ _Protego!”_

The shield erupted overhead. It came forth in silver and black as it had during their duel months ago. Severus could tell it was strong—perhaps the strongest shield he’d ever cast. It felt like no magic had ever felt before—seductively easy, natural. He reined it in until it was tight around them although the urge to let the spell fly wild was strong.

Slowly, they all straightened. The noise from the spell was dampened, leaving them in a bubble of silence.

“A bonded spell,” said Lovegood wonderingly, looking up at the shield.

“A what?” Potter asked.

“It’s a spell that draws on the energies of the person you’re bonded to. It’s quite rare to be able to do it successfully,” said Lovegood. “Most people simply aren’t compatible enough to form a magical connection like that, let alone cast using another person’s magic.”

A chill passed over Severus. _Bonded._ Of course. That was why his spells had come out far beyond his current ability. He was drawing on Potter’s endless wellspring of power. Most likely the danger of their circumstance allowed him to tap in when ordinarily one’s power would be walled off to other wizards.

“But who are you bonded to, sir?” Longbottom turned to him.

Severus’s eyes went to Potter and he watched as understanding dawned on him.

“It’s me,” Potter said. “ _We’ve_ bonded. Whatever the hell that means.”


	10. Bonded

“This is _not_ something Granger can solve,” was the first thing Snape said when they returned to the castle. “I will retain the services of a professional magical assessor and we will determine if the bond is breakable.”

“Hermione knows loads about everything, though,” Harry said, realizing as he said it that it was a pitiful argument. “We should at least get her to confirm what’s going on before we jump to any conclusions.”

“There is no need for confirmation.” Snape dismissed the idea out of hand, striding ahead with the three of them hurrying in his wake. “Lovegood is quite right, and I should have recognized the signs earlier. Our magic has been linked together by the contract, and we need to sever the connection before it becomes further entwined.”

“That’s the other thing I don’t understand. Why do we need to break the connection?”

Snape paused at the entrance to the castle. “There are myriad reasons why it would be a terrible idea for us to remain magically bound, not the least of which is that Dolohov and the Carrows would be ecstatic to hear about this ridiculous accident of magic. Their appearance at Claigheall was no coincidence—they are no doubt bent on finishing the Dark Lord’s dirty deed. If one of us were captured it would be an easy feat for someone to inflict pain and torture on the other. If one of us died the backlash could render the other mentally incapacitated. Need I go on?”

“How come I’ve never heard of this type of thing?” Harry demanded. It was another case where he felt frustratingly out of the loop. Snape could be exaggerating the dangers and Harry would have no idea.

“Because it’s exceedingly rare and nobody has been publicly outed in about a century and a half,” Snape growled. “To that point, I expect that none of you will breathe a word of this to anyone else.”

“I won’t say anything, but we ought to file a report with the Auror division about the attack,” said Neville, unflappable as was his norm nowadays.

Luna had already left to tell her father about the attack, who would doubtless publish the news in a late-breaking version of the day’s Quibbler. Neville was right—Minister Kingsley and Robards both wouldn’t be pleased if they saw it in the paper before it was reported.

“I’ll do it,” Harry said. “Then I’ll get Hermione and we can figure this out _together_.”

“Do _not_ summon Granger. We need an expert with considerable discretion,” Snape insisted.

“Well, who can we trust to be discreet and objective?” Harry demanded. “Anyone you find is going to take one look at the situation and go straight to the press!”

Neville raised a hand as if he were in class and they both rounded on him. “What about the Headmaster?”

Minerva McGonagall regarded the two of them flatly across the massive oak desk. Dumbledore’s portrait gave Harry an enigmatic smile in stark contrast to her grim expression. Harry avoided the portrait’s eyes. What the real Albus Dumbledore have thought?

“You believe the two of you have magically bonded?”

“I’m certain,” Snape said, equally grim. “Potter has drawn on my magic more than once in the past three months, both while casting spells and brewing potions. When we were attacked in the valley I did the same in reverse. Our magic appears exceedingly compatible, with little to no conflict in the casting.”

“Could someone explain to me what a magical bond is?” Harry asked, crossing his arms.

McGonagall pursed her lips. “Magical bonding occurs when two people become able to draw on each others’ wellspring of power. It has been known to happen within a Patronage because of the nature of the contract, but there must be a high degree of compatibility and… openness of the mind. There are other ways of forming a bond, such as a reciprocal spell, but that is more rare. Not many witches or wizards would voluntarily allow another person access to their magic.”

“And we did this _accidentally_?” Harry asked.

“There must be a catalyst—a pre-existing need that the bond fulfils,” McGonagall told him. “Otherwise it will not take.”

“That’s why we must dissolve it immediately,” said Snape.

“Why?” Harry demanded. “Your magic was failing, but now it’s fine. I don’t see the problem.”

“Because Nagini’s poison will eventually drain your powers the way it has done to mine,” he snapped. “I failed to procure the venom I needed, so it will be months of searching before I can finish the potion. Even then, I cannot know for certain that it will stop the atrophy. The poison will leech away my magic and I will draw on yours to fill the void, until both of us are Squibs.”

“It’s not difficult to break a bond,” McGonagall said. “But I hesitate to advise you thusly. The backlash can be considerable. As well, the benefits are many—greater stability and strength, mental connection, shared non-magical skills… the possibilities for experimentation are endless because of how rare it is. Severus, as a skilled Occlumens you should be able to manage the connection without severing the bond completely.”

Snape balked. “And what if I have somehow forced this on Potter because of my particular illness? How long before Robards has me taken away and locked up?”

“It has to be consensual. Right, Headmaster?” Harry said. He would know by now if something had been foisted on him without his say-so—he’d had plenty of practice with non-consensual bonds of the magical variety.

“That is correct,” she said gently. “Excuse me, gentlemen—someone is waiting at the door.”

She left the room. Harry turned to Snape. “We should learn how to control it before deciding to get rid of it.”

“Have you mastered Occlumency while my back was turned, Potter?” Snape asked tiredly, leaning back in his chair.

“I can learn it,” Harry insisted.

“And how long until the remnants of the Dark Lord’s followers get wind of this and plot to use one of us against the other? It has happened over and over again in history. There are more reasons than one why bonded pairs are rare.”

“I—” Harry hesitated. He didn’t have an answer to that. Their Patronage wasn’t widely known yet, but after the events of the day it would only be a matter of time. Neither of them needed to be more of a target than they already were.

Before he could continue McGonagall returned with Hermione in tow. Harry stood and Hermione threw her arms around him.

“Harry! I heard what happened from Luna. She told me you were okay but—I was so worried!”

She gripped him tightly and Harry hugged her back. “I’m fine, Hermione. Just a little shaken up. Dolohov and the Carrows got away, though. We didn’t stick around to figure out where they’d gone.”

“But you talked to Robards, right? They’re sending Aurors to investigate?” She stepped back.

“Yeah, I Floo-called. He’s looking into it.”

“It’s a disgrace that there are still Death Eaters at large. It’s been three years since the war!” She sighed. “Hello, Professor. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Ms Granger.” Snape didn’t look amused.

“Sorry, Hermione, we were sort of in the middle of something,” Harry said. “Do you mind…?”

“I think we were finished, actually,” said Snape firmly. He stood and swept out of the room.

Harry watched him go. “Bugger.”

“Mr Potter, language, please.” McGonagall tutted. “Severus will come around. You both have been through a lot. I’m sure he just needs time to process.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on here?”

He took her arm and steered her out of McGonagall’s office. “I’d better tell you outside.”

“A magical bond? I’ve never heard of it.” Hermione frowned. For her, the idea of something existing that she wasn’t an expert on was an offence. Harry, on the other hand, had grown resigned to new and ever more strange quirks of the wizarding world popping up at inopportune moments.

“Apparently we have some sort of mental link and we can use each others’ magic.” Harry shrugged, trying to sound more nonchalant than he felt.

“A mental link sounds a lot like what you had with Voldemort,” she said cautiously. “McGonagall didn’t seem worried at all?”

“She just said it was rare. But anyway, it’s not like Snape is going to try anything.” Harry trusted him. In fact, he doubted that Snape would take anything from him even if Harry wanted him to, just on sheer perverse stubbornness.

“No, you’re right.” She looked across the lake. They’d come outside to meander along the shore. The late evening sun threw her contemplative frown into sharp relief. “It’s not like he’ll use it against you. I think he’s very proud, you know. He would probably consider it disgraceful to use someone else’s magic.”

“You’ve thought a lot about him,” Harry concluded, looking down at her. She took his arm as they walked like she sometimes did, a comforting warmth against his side.

“I’ve been thinking about him since you signed the contract. I didn’t understand why you chose him, of all people. I still don’t, but… I guess I have to accept that whatever’s going on is between the two of you. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Always looking out for me,” Harry teased.

“Someone has to,” she said solemnly.

“You know I can look out for myself,” he said cautiously, not wanting to argue again.

“I _know_.” She sighed deeply, a touch of frustration entering her voice. “Harry, I have to tell you something.”

“What?” he asked. She hesitated and pulled away from him.

“Ron proposed,” she said very quickly. “I said yes.”

“That’s great!” Harry grinned and hugged her shoulders. He tamped down the part of him that grew suddenly cold. “I told him not to wait.”

“We’re moving in together,” she went on.

“Yeah, you should. You’re engaged. It’s not like I can’t pay for the flat on my own!” He tried a laugh. But Hermione squirmed out from under his arm and turned her face up to him with a watery glare.

“I don’t want things to change because of this,” she pleaded.

“I know that,” Harry said gently, extricating himself so that they stood apart. The wind coming off the lake was chilly and he wished he’d brought a sweater. “But they have to. I can’t expect you guys to solve my problems when you’re going to be building a new life together.”

“I’m scared that you’re going to do something crazy when I can’t be around to stop you—or help you.” She sniffled.

Harry did laugh then. “So am I.”

Hermione punched him in the arm lightly. “Stop that, it’s not funny. When you and Ginny ducked your guard and went off to the cottage after the war and Dolohov found you, I really thought I might lose you then—”

“Because of Dolohov, or because of Ginny?” Harry asked.

“Both, I guess,” she said. “We were still a trio then, but you were already breaking away. I thought it would be Ron and I first.”

“Well, you were right in the end,” Harry said. “Gin broke up with me and I came back into the fold.”

“You make it sound like a cult!” she said.

“I mean, it sort of was. The cult of Harry Potter.” He snorted. Hermione rolled her eyes, smiling through her tears. “It was lucky for me that the two of you didn’t believe too strongly, or I’d have gotten a big head.”

“We _always_ believed in you,” Hermione said fiercely, her chin beginning to tremble again. “We still do. Ron and I both. Don’t forget that when you’re off having wild adventures and we’re home with the kids.”

“I think my adventuring days are over,” Harry pointed out. “That’s why Ginny and I broke up in the first place. She wanted fun and I wanted to settle down.”

“Well, _I_ think that’s bollocks,” she said sharply. She took his arm again and steered him back to the path. “Have you ever considered there might be other reasons the two of you broke up? Ginny’s great, don’t get me wrong, but her idea of fun and yours might be a little different.”

Harry grimaced. “Yeah. I have considered it.”

He’d been thinking about their breakup a lot recently, in fact. It was a puzzle that came back to him sometimes, something he’d never been able to solve. Why _had_ they broken up? On paper they were perfect for each other—Ginny was happy, outgoing, and confident. She loved him for who he was. They were passionate about each other.

But in reality the war had torn a rift between them that they hadn’t been able to cross. Ginny had called him selfish once, and Harry couldn’t imagine what she meant. He was happy to do anything she wanted. Now he understood—she’d believed that after the war she’d get all of him, finally, but there were parts of himself that he was still too scared to share with anyone. Dark things he thought he could leave out of their happy union. He didn’t want to talk about why he still woke up screaming sometimes, or why he hadn’t done his NEWT’s, or why he hadn’t been back to Hogwarts after three years. He wanted to keep those things sectioned away.

He was starting to understand that he would never get past them until he took them out and examined them, though.

They walked for a while in silence, watching the Giant Squid salute the sunset in a complicated alien ritual. Hermione shivered as the warmth began to leech out of the day.

“Let’s go back to the flat,” she said. “Ron’s been at work—we’ll have to fill him in.”

“Can I tell you something first?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said without hesitation.

He took a deep breath. “I’m not straight. I, er, I like men. I mean, women too, but mostly men.”

He could see her visibly force herself not to react. She tightened her grip on his arm incrementally. “That’s—that’s great, Harry,” she said reservedly. “Thank you for telling me.”

He grimaced. It wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for. “It’s okay, right?”

“Oh, Harry.” She turned and flung her arms around him suddenly and he stumbled. “Of course it’s okay! I didn’t want to scare you off.”

“Because I’m baring my heart to you here, and your reaction was very lack-lustre—”

She pounded him on the back as he wrapped his arms around her. “Oh my god, don’t be a brat.”

Harry grinned into her shoulder.

Of course, where things were easy with Ron and Hermione they were the opposite with Snape, who remained inflexible and opaque as usual. The next day Harry woke to an owl:

_Potter,_

_I am going away for a time. I will return at the beginning of the Hogwarts school year, at which point you may expect a continuation of our lessons. Endeavour not to get yourself into trouble while we are magically hogtied._

_Severus_

“Git,” Harry muttered, setting the letter alight with his wand. Why did Snape have the right to run off and sulk?

_And leave me behind._

The trouble was, everyone seemed to think Snape had the right idea.

“Maybe you should let him have his strop,” Ron said. “It’s probably weird for him. Hell, it’s weird that you’re not more freaked out by it.”

“I guess I’m used to having five impossible things happen before breakfast.” Harry sighed and rolled onto his back on the floor. The Daily Prophet winked at him from the coffee table: _Potter’s Patron Prince! Harry Potter’s Patron revealed to be none other than Severus Snape, Order of Merlin, First Class, bringing the once-tarnished Prince lineage back into style with a triumphant flourish._ And some further drivel speculating on how, exactly, Snape secured Harry’s Patronage, along with a host of thinly veiled insults. Harry had been chucking them into the bin and setting them on fire when he felt especially like sulking.

A week after Snape’s disappearance he still had strange, stomach-churning feelings when he thought about the whole affair. He wasn’t angry about the bond, but he was angry that Snape had left him to deal with it on his own. Snape was supposed to be his mentor. Harry hadn’t expected him to be _nice_ and _supportive_ , exactly, but neither had he expected Snape to flee at the first indication that their Patronage might amount to something real.

Now that he knew it was there he could feel the bond—a gentle but insistent prodding at the back of his head. Like Snape himself, it was frustratingly intangible.

“He’ll come around,” Ron assured him. “He said he’d be back in September, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, probably with new methods of avoidance,” Harry grumbled.

There was a clatter from the front hallway as Hermione returned. Harry heard her cast a spell to move the boxes in the hallway out of the way, and another complaint as something clattered to the floor. Ron was in the middle of packing; they were moving out the weekend before Hermione’s classes started again.

Already the flat felt empty. A hollow sense of dissatisfaction had settled over Harry. Though he was doing his best not to sulk he knew both Ron and Hermione saw right through him—they tip-toed around the subjects of moving in and wedding planning when he was in the room. He wished that people would stop treating him like he was made of glass. Even Luna had offered to find him a new roommate. It only made Harry want to throw things.

"I've brought someone to visit," Hermione called with forced cheer a moment before she appeared in the doorway. She gave them a slightly strained smile, and Malfoy appeared behind her.

"Ah, no," Ron groaned, throwing his arm over his eyes. "Not on my day off."

"Be nice," Hermione scolded. “He’s just here to talk to Harry.”

"Hello, Potter," said Malfoy, waving a piece of parchment at him. "I have a letter from your sorry excuse of a Patron."

"Draco," Harry greeted him. "You—wait, what?"

He sat up. Malfoy handed him the letter.

"He's been owling about looking for Potions ingredients. Couldn't handle being in your presence, could he? Was your fame too dazzling or was it your sparkling personality that drove him off to Ireland?”

"He owled you?" Harry opened the letter and skimmed it. Jealousy plucked at the back of his mind. “How do you know where he is?”

"What, no witty repartee?" Malfoy complained.

Harry rolled his eyes. "How are you _more_ obnoxious now that we're mates? Just tell me where he is."

Malfoy shoved Ron's legs off the end of the couch and sat as Hermione disappeared into the kitchen.

"You want my opinion?" he asked.

"Nobody wants your opinion," Ron interjected.

"My opinion," said Malfoy loudly, ignoring him, "is that Severus is a rank coward, like every Slytherin worth his colours, and he can’t stand to be reminded of it. So instead of making an honest man of you—”

“It’s a _magical bond_ , not a marriage proposal,” Ron said.

“—Same thing, Weasley—he ran away and left you holding the baby, so to speak. But he’s not an idiot. He knows this is the best thing to happen to his public image since his dubious Order of Merlin, First Class. You should go have a big blowout confrontation, it’ll appeal to his sense of drama.”

“Pot, kettle,” said Ron.

“Listen, I know how he thinks.” Malfoy sank back into the cushions with a scowl. “And that’s what will get to him.”

“So where is he?” Harry repeated patiently.

“In Ireland, you ignoramus, like I said. At Prince Manor.”


	11. Prince Manor

Severus was a man very much used to being alone. His childhood at Spinner’s End, the isolation of being a double agent, and the stigma of his career meant that on the whole, he spent more time in his own company than anything. He had come to terms with it. In fact, he often preferred it.

Potter had upset that balance and left him spinning in freefall, no longer sure of what he wanted. He had become accustomed to Potter’s presence and charm, his carefree grin, his casual self-deprecation, the intensity with which he approached all things in life. It was dangerous to get used to people. Every instinct he had was shouting at him to cut and run.

So he did.

The end of July neared, which meant he had a month to clear his head before the students returned from their holidays. He took a Portkey to Banbridge and then a private Muggle car west, through the small village at the edge of the moor and beyond to Prince Manor.

The manor had passed to Eileen Prince when Severus was sixteen, but between the time he attended Hogwarts until his mother passed he only ever set foot on the grounds once. She hated the place for reasons he didn’t understand, or perhaps ones he preferred not to think about. She lived in the manor until her own parents died when she was nine, after which there was no money left to keep the place. It passed to a cousin while Eileen was sent to live with relatives in Cokeworth.

It was in Cokeworth during her seventeenth summer that she met Tobias Snape. Severus had heard this story from his mother in several iterations over the years, in secret at first, then more openly as his father’s health declined. When the manor finally came into her possession Tobias was gone, and Eileen’s narrative about him became vitriolic. She would not visit it, nor would she allow him to go.

Severus understood now, at forty two, that it was because Prince Manor represented her disappointment and thwarted happiness. Had she only been allowed to stay at the manor she never would have met Tobias, never would have fallen into the black pit of her own mind that kept her locked in Cokeworth. She never would have borne the strange, watchful child upon whom Tobias heaped all of his misery and unkindness and who tore her apart with guilt. In her mind the passing of the manor to her was a mockery of her suffering.

When Severus was discharged from St. Mungo’s he’d not given Prince Manor a thought. In the years that followed, however, as he found himself searching farther afield for an antidote to his magical decline, he realized he was foolish to avoid the old place. It had a library, a house elf who could assist him with research, and was a far better accommodation than Tobias’s old house—at least the walls were stone and not crumbling brick. There would be no Muggles about, either. It might never be a home, but neither would Spinner’s end. With every passing year it was more and more difficult to settle into the house for the summer, the sharp blade of memory springing forth to cut him anew when he stepped into that grey town. Here he was made to contemplate the threads of his life that wove such a miserable tapestry. Here was where it started, the whole awful thing.

Finally he owled the house elf and came to the manor. It was decrepit in many ways, not as grand as most Pureblood properties. The architecture was old-fashioned and the interior outdated by nearly a century. Even the house elf had served Severus’s ill-fated grandfather since he was a child himself. None of that mattered to Severus; he cared nothing for fashion, and the elf was pleased enough to have a new master.

Now she greeted him at the gate and took his bags with a careful bow. She was old for an elf, though their age didn’t show like a wizard’s.

“Mitty is glad to see Master Severus again,” she said. It had been some months since his last visit. “The manor is needing many repairs this season. Will Master Severus be bringing in an assessor?”

“No, Mitty, I’m only staying a month. Not long enough to oversee any repairs,” he told her.

Mitty frowned but delicately said nothing. Although a house elf was typically unaware of the state of their master’s coffers he suspected she knew nonetheless how little remained in the Prince vault. Nor would Severus have means to replenish it on his meagre teacher’s salary, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her that. He was the last of the Prince line by blood—all of Eileen’s cousins had long since concluded their short, brutish lives. If he died the place would have to be sold.

“Master Severus is looking tired. Mitty will prepare dinner and a bath,” Mitty said, and disappeared with a pop.

Severus trudged up the long carriageway. Gravel crunched beneath his feet loudly in the still air. It was brisk out here, threatening rain. Already he felt resolve settle over him. He could manage the bond from here—Potter was, as already established, woefully inadequate as an Occlumens. When Severus returned to Hogwarts Potter would have to accept that there was nothing to be gained from the bond and they would sever the connection in full.

Once alone Severus found that the effects of the bond came out in sharp relief. It became clear that he’d been ignoring obvious oddities because he hadn’t wanted to consider that they might mean something.

He could tell when Potter was asleep or awake by the pulse of intangible _Potter-ness_ that came through the bond. He knew when Potter was casting a spell or flying about on a broom. He sensed Potter’s emotions depending on their intensity, and they affected him more than he wanted to admit. He would find himself unnecessarily irritated while brewing a standard Pepper-Up, or cheered when he was merely sitting by the cold fireplace and reading a text. Waves of unfamiliar feelings came and went over the days.

Academically, it was fascinating. Emotionally, it was exhausting. It disturbed him on some level to think that back in London Potter might be experiencing the same thing in reverse. A mind like his was no place for the boy.

In between his research and the small maintenances of the manor that he was able to take on, Severus strengthened his mental shield. It seemed that the stronger the wizard, the stronger the bond—still, he could protect Potter from the worst of it.

Since the deaths of the two strongest Legilimens in the world Severus had been lax in his shielding. Maintaining a constant Occlumental shield was a difficult and draining task, even for a master, and there had been no compelling reason to do so after the war ended. Now, Severus took the time to examine his shielding construct in the metaphysical plane and apply the necessary repairs.

When he closed his eyes he could see the silver thread of his bond to Potter winding through the maze that protected his mind until it came to the centre, where lay the cradle of his memories. Seeing it there, truly understanding what it meant to have bound his magic to another, stirred up the kinds of sentiments which he believed he had long since put to bed. Desire crept through his defences, put down roots and bloomed into seductive thoughts.

It was all the more imperative to sever the thread before those desires bore fruit.

He raised new walls in the maze and the bond dimmed. He studied, meditated, and stewed in frustration. His research into venom alternatives came to nothing, and in a fit of desperation Severus finally reached out to his most dubious contacts. It was a risk: any of them could trace the owl back to its origin. Prince Manor was not Unplottable, nor was there money to make it so. But he had no choice.

Snake handlers were not rare in the business of Potions and he knew plenty, both legitimate and fly-by-night. Nevertheless he received only a handful of responses. All of them were negative—either they didn’t have a poison deadly enough for his purposes or they wouldn’t sell it to him.

The potion sat in stasis in the cellar with the bottled stores of its second and third parts. The stasis would decay soon—there was nothing he could do to stop that. Afterward it would be another year, perhaps two, before he could collect the ingredients to brew it again. By then he would have very little magic. It would be a nearly impossible feat.

It was time to pull his last string.

He took his time wording the letter to Draco. As always, he remained unsure of his godson’s loyalties. It wasn’t that Draco kept his cards close to his chest but that he was liable to turn depending on which way the wind blew—or rather, which way Lucius Malfoy pointed. Severus was fond of the boy but fondness was not a substitute for trust.

He knew that his gambit could easily turn sour. Draco could alert his father to Severus’s whereabouts and Lucius would not hesitate to set his bootlicker Nott after Severus while he wasn’t strong enough to defend himself. Still, he maintained hope that Draco might have been swayed from under his father’s thumb by the turn of the war and Lucius’s imprisonment—it was a risk he had to take.

The response to his owl came quickly.

 _Dear Severus_ , it read.

_Granger tells me that you’ve accepted Patronage for our mutual acquaintance. She had some further interesting news—she says you’ve gone off in a sulk after learning you and said acquaintance have become magically bonded. I begrudgingly accept that Precious Potter will never do anything normal in his life, but I’m disappointed you’ve finally fallen prey to his shenanigans._

_On a more serious note, I regret that I cannot help you with your predicament. I have a future in Potions myself. It is too risky for me to reach out to my contacts on your behalf._

_I’m sure you understand my position._

_Regards,_

_Draco._

Severus cursed. Draco knew about the Patronage _and_ the bond. No doubt the joke was a cover-up for his hurt feelings. If someone had asked Severus five years ago if he would offer as a Patron for anyone it would have been for Draco. At one point he believed he could have seen the boy through a fruitful apprenticeship. But the Dark Lord had his say in that matter, too, in the end. Now Severus would not—he could not, seeing so much of Lucius in him. And yet he found himself wishing, briefly, that he had. Draco would have been honour-bound to help him and Severus would not be mired in this mess with Potter.

That kind of foolhardy thinking only made him angry.

“Mitty, bring me my boots,” he snapped, banishing the letter with a wave of his hand. The bond sparkled warningly at this show of magic, infuriating him further. He could hardly perform the most basic spells without drawing power from his mental shield. His magic was in rapid decline. Draco’s letter lit a cold flicker of fear in his gut that had been a long time coming.

“Yes, Master Snape,” said Mitty. She disappeared and reappeared with his dragonhide boots an instant later. “Master is going for a walk on the moors?”

He sighed. “How do you know?”

“Mitty sees Master go walking at night. Mitty follows behind. The moors are not safe—dangerous beasts lurk in the hills,” she chided him.

“Ah.” Of course. The elf thought he was incompetent—she could probably sense his magic levels.

Mitty tried to put his boots on him, but Severus grabbed them from her roughly and tugged them on himself. Her ears twitched in irritation and she vanished with a crack.

“Master Snape is being more civil!” Her disembodied voice rang in her absence.

Severus scowled and yanked at his laces, his temper stoked. He tied on a rain-proof woollen cloak and lifted the hood as he stepped out into the drizzle. Even in August it hardly stopped raining to let a person breathe in this part of Ireland. The road that stretched out to the north of the manor tapered quickly to a foot-path lined with stones, the work of some long-ago Prince. Severus strode along until it became muck. His cloak flapped wetly in the miserable weather and his boots slipped on the uneven surface.

The rain cooled his temper and left him soggy and ashamed. Draco was right—Severus did understand his position. He would need his connections. He might be attending that ridiculous Muggle school today, but Draco’s true calling had always been Potions. He would have to succeed in spite of Lucius rather than because of him.

Still, where did that leave Severus?

In a moor somewhere with his boot stuck in mud, it seemed.

He sighed and extracted himself. The sun grew low in the sky and his thoughtless flight had sent him on the path between the two hills that flanked the manor and around the shoulder of another, out of sight of the tallest fourth floor tower. He could get lost out here and no one would know it; he would be helpless to find himself. The world seemed very large and cold at that moment.

Severus had only just resolved to return to the manor with his tail between his legs and ask Mitty to run him a hot bath when there was a crack of Apparition nearby like a firework going off. Badly startled, Severus raised his wand on instinct and shouted _“Lumos!”,_ pointing it blindly. Scenarios sprung to mind: a Death Eater, or one of the erstwhile allies-turned-enemies whom he’d contacted coming to take advantage of his weakness.

A flash of blinding light burst from his wand and threw the heather into stark relief. A figure was illuminated briefly and at the same time the bond blazed like a beacon, searing into his mind’s eye. The figure stepped forward.

“Severus?”

It was Potter.

“Potter! I could have seriously injured you,” he barked. Adrenaline gripped his ribs with a hot iron hand and squeezed. He lowered his wand and the light wavered out, leaving only the murky dusk. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing here? How did you find this place?”

“Draco told me where you were,” Potter said. “I felt you through the bond—it was terrible. I thought my head was going to explode. Did something happen?”

“No!” Severus stalked forward and grabbed Potter by the shoulder. “I came here to be alone, not to have my privacy invaded by you popping in whenever you feel like it.”

Potter winced as if in pain. “I’m sorry. I just thought—”

“Did you think? Or did you just do what you pleased, as always?” Severus sneered.

“Well, what do you expect me to do?” Potter stepped up and lifted his chin stubbornly. “You ran off without a word! When I felt—whatever that was earlier I didn’t know if you were kidnapped, in danger, or dead.”

“No skin off your nose either way, isn’t it?” Severus said scathingly.

“How can you say that?” Potter demanded. “I—”

He stopped. His shoulders drooped and he seemed to sway briefly.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Severus stepped back just as Potter retched into the grass. “Did you Apparate all the way from London?”

“Yeah, I just—” he broke off and heaved again. “Draco told me where the manor was, so I—”

“You followed the bond into the moors,” Severus concluded. “Foolish boy. You could have spliced yourself badly.”

Potter tried to say something but he couldn’t get out the words. Finally Severus raised his wand. “ _Reparifos,”_ he said.

The heaving stopped. Potter wiped his mouth and slowly straightened, clutching his chest with one hand. “Ugh. Thanks. Listen, I’m sorry—I can go if you really want. I just had to see… to make sure you were safe.”

“You can’t Apparate back to London. I will have to order you a Portkey from the village in the morning.” Severus raised his hood again. “Come, then.”

He walked quickly and Potter struggled to keep up. The night settled in around them, blanketing them with the caress of cool rain and the gentle braa-aking of frogs. It was all well and good for Severus to walk alone after dark, but he did so with the utmost awareness of his surroundings. Potter’s mere presence was a distraction, frustratingly, and he had to force himself to remain alert to the possibility of danger.

When they came in sight of the manor Potter stopped.

“That’s yours?” he asked. Severus couldn’t see his face in the dark but he could imagine the wide-eyed surprise.

“It is the ancestral Prince home. As the last of the line, it falls to me. It’s no Malfoy Manor—don’t expect to sleep on silk sheets tonight,” Severus warned.

“Thank God for that,” Potter joked.

Mitty met them at the door. Her large, pale eyes went huge when she saw Potter. She grabbed his wrist with her bony fingers and dragged him to the entrance chaise.

“Master Severus did not tell Mitty that a guest was coming to Prince Manor!” she cried, unlacing Potter’s boots at lightning speed. “Where is his bags? Where is his horse? Mitty will have to turn down a stable and prepare a guest bedroom.”

She made a noise of distress and pulled Potter’s boots off rather forcefully. Potter looked up at him with a laugh lurking at the corners of his mouth but for once was sensible enough to keep it in. Severus avoided his gaze. The easiness with which Potter leaned on him for shared sentiment, the frivolous compatriotism, hit him hard. Potter turned away, but not before Severus spotted the downward twitch of his mouth.

He hurt every time Severus felt something too strongly. The shield did little in such close proximity.

“There is no horse,” Severus said as a distraction. “Potter Apparated in. From London.”

“London!” Mitty squeaked, aghast. She clung to Potter’s calf and whimpered, momentarily forgetting her propriety. “Ohhh.”

Severus smirked at Potter’s obvious discomfort. He shed his own wet cape and boots efficiently and set them to dry while Mitty cooed over Potter and tried to undress him in the entrance hall. Potter made a pitiful attempt to fend her off, but Mitty had the advantage of house elf magic and decades of experience with recalcitrant children. Every time she snapped her fingers a piece of Potter’s robes or the Muggle clothes he wore underneath wrested itself off his body and zoomed down the hall past Severus toward the laundry room while Potter squawked in protest. In short order he was bare-chested and clutching his belt as it tried to unbuckle itself. Severus watched with petty satisfaction.

Finally Potter stood up. “That’s enough!” he said loudly. “Stop it!”

“The young Master is a guest, he cannot speak to Mitty in such a way,” Mitty said shrilly.

She clapped her hands and Potter disappeared. There came a thump and a shout from upstairs. Severus pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Mitty, he’s just over-exerted himself Apparating and you have more than likely aggravated the problem. He’s going to be sick all over the guest suite. Go attend to him, please.”

Mitty clasped her hands to her mouth in realization. “Mitty is a bad elf!”

“Just go!” he snapped, pointing. She left with a pop.

The truth was that Severus was having rather disturbing images of attending to a half-naked Potter himself. He stalked into the pantry where he knew Mitty kept old Bartholomew Prince’s twice-aged Firewhisky and poured himself a generous measure. He sat down heavily at the elves’ dining table, drained the glass and poured himself another.


	12. Unfolding

Harry woke in an unfamiliar bed with a pounding head and a foul taste in his mouth. He tried to sit up and promptly leaned over the side of the bed and vomited.

He was inexplicably dressed in someone else’s pyjamas—they were green and silk and had bunched up around his arms and legs in the night. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and swung his legs off the edge of the four poster bed. A house elf popped into existence at the bedside.

“Master is awake,” she said needlessly. She was dressed in a tiny pinafore made out of what appeared to be a seventeenth century brocade curtain, and she looked old even for an elf.

Harry stared at her blankly and she stared back. House elves had a propensity for stating the obvious when they didn’t know what else to do, which he suspected was carried over from their human counterparts.

“Where am I?”

“Master is in the second largest guest bedroom at Prince Manor,” said the elf.

In a flash, the events of the previous night came back to Harry. He groaned at dropped his head into his hands. “Snape is going to kill me.”

“Hmm,” Mitty said noncommittally, which was about as disapproving as a house elf got. “Master is going to breakfast now?”

“Ugh. I guess I have to.”

Harry had never been very good at leaving problems to work themselves out—the thought of inaction made him panicky and tight-chested. When Malfoy finally told him where Prince Manor was his first instinct had been to commandeer a Portkey. Hermione had been the one to talk him down, of course. She pointed out that the letter Severus had sent him basically said “ _I’m running away—don’t come after me, or I’ll find somewhere further away to go.”_

“What do you think will happen if you show up at his doorstep?” Hermione had asked pointedly, after translating this.

“He’ll run all the way to France, I expect,” Harry replied darkly.

And yet here he was, and presumably here Severus was as well—not running away. Yet.

He’d been asleep on the couch when he felt it: a sharp bolt of some indefinable emotion that woke him out of the blue and rattled around his head in an effort to attach to some meaningful action. His first thought had been—perhaps unsurprisingly—Voldemort. His second thought was that some spell had been cast on the flat. But once he ruled both of those out it didn’t take Harry long to come to the conclusion that it was Severus’s emotion, not his, and that something was wrong.

As it turned out circumstances were rather less life-threatening than he’d first imagined, but his legs were still wobbly with the aftermath. And the Apparating.

Harry stumbled around the spacious guest suite but couldn’t find any of his clothes from the night before. On the bedside table was a small vial that had been in his jeans; he’d been carrying it around since Hermione gave it to him, not sure if he’d need it after all. He pocketed it and gave up the search for proper clothing.

Catching a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror he had to chuckle. The pyjamas that the house elf had put him in were undeniably in Slytherin colours.

The stairs led into a two-storey entrance with a massive, dusty chandelier and marble floors that had seen better days. Ancestral portraits ringed the foyer like a panel of judges. The carpet runner along the stairs had been plush, velvety and crimson at one point in its life but now was a dusty, worn rose. He padded across the open space, following the smell of hotcakes, and the portraits tutted and whispered to each other in his wake.

At the entrance to the kitchen he ran into Snape, who was fully buttoned up and looked startled to see him.

“Potter. You’re awake.”

It seemed the habit of stating the obvious applied to reclusive Potion’s Masters as well.

“Friendly lot you have here,” he remarked.

The corner of Snape’s mouth twitched. “Ah, yes. The family judiciary. I trust you feel properly chastened for existing.”

“Nothing really beats out Walburga Black screaming at the top of her lungs about blood traitors,” Harry said wryly.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Snape seemed to run out of words. His dark gaze flickered up and down, taking in Harry’s slippers and his borrowed sleepwear, and Harry’s heartbeat ratcheted up.

“Breakfast?” he blurted out nonsensically.

Snape stepped aside. “Mitty laid out a full spread. You’re welcome to it before you leave.”

“I mean… will you join me?”

“I prefer a strong cup of tea for breakfast.”

“I think you owe me after disappearing with only a cryptic letter and leaving me to deal with the bond alone,” Harry pointed out.

“You felt it,” Snape inferred flatly.

“I mostly felt you trying to shut me out. I may not be a Legilimens but I’m not a complete idiot—you don’t want me in your head.” Harry tried not to let that be accusatory but it came out petulant in spite of his effort.

Snape sighed. “Sometimes I regret that you are so dogged about everything. Very well. I’ll join you.”

In typical house elf fashion Mitty had outdone herself. The breakfast table was laden. There were fruits and pancakes; bacon rashers, black pudding, and eggs done three different ways; fried tomatoes and mushrooms; and a pitcher of orange juice and two steaming carafes. On the breadboard was a fresh round of soda bread and a small pyramid of biscuits. Harry’s mouth watered as he took it all in.

“This is better than Hogwarts,” he said. “Don’t tell the elves I said that.”

“They would take it as a challenge.” Snape sat across from him and poured himself tea out of one carafe.

“Is there coffee?” Harry perked up. Wizards were not all that fond of coffee and he’d only developed a taste for it after moving to Muggle London—now he was pretty fond of it, but it was hard to find when he mostly frequented wizarding areas.

Snape lifted the lid off the second carafe and made a face like he’d smelled something rotten. “Foul stuff.”

Harry gestured and Snape slid the carafe over. He made himself a cup with a generous splash of cream and inhaled deeply.

“Fantastic,” he sighed, leaning back in the chair. “I haven’t had a decent cup in weeks. Hermione says wizards are too impatient to make proper coffee—they’re too used to instant gratification.”

“Ironic,” Snape muttered into his tea.

Harry ignored this and piled a plate high with rashers, scrambled eggs and pancakes, then drenched the whole thing with syrup. He could see Severus fighting to keep a straight face as he shovelled syrupy eggs into his mouth.

“Draco told me you haven’t found a poison yet,” he said.

Snape visibly winced. “I see you’ve picked up Weasley’s disgusting habit of speaking through your food.”

Harry swallowed. “Don’t deflect,” he said, pointing the fork at Snape.

“Draco is correct.” He frowned. “It seems my reputation precedes me. I have had no luck with my international contacts.”

“He said he wouldn’t get it for you, either.”

“By this point word will be out who’s asking for such a poison,” Snape said. “It’s a small community. Draco is smart to serve his own interests first.”

“That’s rubbish,” Harry said feelingly.

This was why Draco would make a poor Patronage for someone like Snape. He saw people in terms of what they could do for him rather than the other way around, and Snape accepted that kind of selfishness without question.

He reached into the pocket where the little vial was. The glass was cold to the touch. He took it out and set it on the table, far away from his plate. “Here.”

Snape picked it up, his expression unreadable. It was unlabeled, gently rounded at the bottom, and had a Muggle style silicone-sealed lid. Its contents were faintly yellow. Harry had enclosed it in a cooling spell to carry it around with him, since wizards in their infinite wisdom didn’t own refrigerators and he hadn’t wanted to store it with his food anyway.

Harry stuffed his face with pancakes so that he wasn’t tempted to chatter. Snape took out his wand and drew it across the surface of the vial; the liquid inside turned black, then yellow again.

“This is taipan venom.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed and pushed away his plate, suddenly anxious.

“Where did you get this?”

“Hermione has Muggle contacts in Australia. The Muggles extract venom to make antivenin—you just have to know who to ask.”

Snape pocketed his wand and the venom. “Finish your breakfast and put on some proper clothes.”

—

Harry met Snape in his new potions lab. Prince Manor housed a long, distinguished line of aristocrats for whom working for pay was simply not done, besides the occasional moving about of assets—the kind of attitude he’d come to expect from certain pureblood families. Their wealth came from the appreciation of Galleons in Gringotts. Any labour of intellect was purely a pastime.

As a consequence, however, there was nothing resembling a workspace anywhere in the manor, so Snape had converted one of the tower rooms into a lab. It was reminiscent of the sixth floor classroom, though Harry supposed any room would look much the same once a person got brewing in it.

The room itself was cool and filled with the gently spicy smell of Pepper-Up. Harry wondered if Snape had been taking it to stave off the effects of Nagini’s poison. The large silver cauldron had the principal place in the middle of the room, and a smaller one which looked made of glass or crystal sat above an unlit burner to the side. Snape took two large flasks out of the cupboard and placed them on the cabinet he was obviously using as a workbench.

Harry was dressed in a borrowed robe and a heavy cloak more suited to winter which Mitty had foisted on him. He unpinned the cloak and rolled up the sleeves of his robe.

“Are we going to brew the potion right away?” he asked.

“The base will not be stable for much longer.” Snape lit a green wizard-fire under the large cauldron. He tapped the edge of the cauldron with his wand and a wisp of dark smoke rose from its tip. “Temperature sensor,” he explained.

“I can do that,” Harry offered.

“I’m not an invalid,” Snape retorted. He took a deep breath and put his fingers to his forehead. “What I mean is that I need you to prepare ingredients. This part of the potion is very temperature sensitive. The venom will not activate below a certain temperature but it must not boil.”

Harry lined up the ingredients for the final stage of the potion at Snape’s direction. Each one was more obscure and deadly than the last: Acromantula eyes pickled in their own fluids, powdered Antipodean Opaleye fangs, tangled webs of poisonous jellyfish tentacles, and finally the tiny vial of snake venom.

Snape tapped the cauldron and the smoke that came out of his wand was white.

“It’s ready.”

Harry unscrewed the jar of Acromantula eyes and measured them out with the inert gold scoop. He held his breath as he lowered them gently into the cauldron; they melted away into the potion like they were made of spun sugar.

One by one he slid each ingredient into the dark brew while Severus stirred with a long, silver rod. The potion hissed with each addition, as if in anticipation. At last he picked up the vial of now-clear venom and unscrewed the lid.

“Now,” Severus breathed, leaning forward to watch closely.

Harry tipped the vial over the potion and the meagre few drops slipped out. Where they hit the potion the surface of it erupted in bubbles. Severus stopped stirring and they both watched with bated breath as a cloudy black solid slowly precipitated out of the mixture.

"It's curdled," Snape said.

"Is that good?" Harry looked up. Snape’s expression was answer enough.

"The poison has bound to the most potent ingredients. All it leaves behind is water. I will need to filter it now."

He raised his wand and began to recite a spell that Harry had never heard before. The surface of the potion shuddered as if disturbed and the black stuff slowly coalesced below the surface near the tip of Snape's wand, swirling and churning. Snape lifted his wand high and drew out a thread that danced like a snake suspended in air. He sent the thread spinning into the smaller glass cauldron.

Harry took a stool, uncertain of what to do.

"This may take a long time," Snape said.

"I'm not going anywhere."

He wasn’t about to leave now—he wanted to see this through to the end.

Snape didn't protest. Sweat gathered on his brow and he frowned in concentration as he maintained the integrity of the thread. He had rolled up the sleeves of his robe in the same manner as Harry, exposing pale, corded forearms which were strong from decades of brewing. The skin of his right arm was gathered into a pale, twisted scar where the Dark Mark had once been.

It was the first time Harry had seen it. His own scar was no more or less than before, still a jagged mark on his forehead that identified him to anyone with eyes. He’d stopped hiding it, though. He wondered if he could dare draw the conclusion that Snape had stopped hiding from him.

He drew his knee up and crossed his arms over it while he watched Snape work. It was like was looking with new eyes and seeing things that he'd not allowed himself to see before. Snape wasn't the first man whose arms Harry had appreciated, but it was the first time he’d looked with intent. Knowing that Snape was the same as him—recalling the assessing glance that morning, and the way that Snape sometimes watched him when he thought Harry wasn’t paying attention—made his stomach knot and his palms sweat.

Snape's brow twitched and Harry wondered with sudden, awful embarrassment if Snape could tell what was going through his mind because of the bond. He looked away quickly and tried to think about the potion.

If it worked there would be less reason to sever the bond, and maybe Snape could be convinced that it was useful. Harry couldn’t put his finger on exactly why he was so reluctant to let go of it now that he knew it was there. It was strange, to be sure. His mental link to Voldemort had been insidious, uncontrolled, rearing its ugly head at the whim its master’s temperament. Like Voldemort, Snape strove for control and often came up lacking. But instead of fostering contempt Harry found himself craving the glimpses he got of Snape’s inner self, a strange act of empathy he didn’t fully understand.

At last Snape lowered his wand, exhausted. The active precipitate lay gathered in the bowl of the glass cauldron. He stood and staggered to the work bench. One by one he took the second and third parts of the potion to the glass cauldron and measured them into the brew in equal volume.

He snapped his fingers and a white hot flame leapt into being beneath the glass cauldron, and its contents came almost immediately to a thick, rolling boil. The room was filled with a smell of dust and rain and the steam that rose off the potion turned the air paradoxically cold. Harry shivered and hugged his knees.

Snape seemed unaffected. He directed the flames higher and higher until they consumed the cauldron entirely and hid it from view. There was a crack. Harry sat forward, holding his breath. The glass cauldron shattered, bursting outward through the flames. Snape released the fire with a flick of his wrist and then it was over—glass shards lay scattered about their feet in the wreckage of the twisted cauldron-rest.

He leaned over and picked something out of the rubble. It looked like a small, white stone. He opened his mouth and put it on his tongue.

Abruptly, Harry _knew_. Their bond lit up with silver, then white; it was blinding, filling his head and overflowing into his body. It was a river rushing over him. He shut his eyes and clutched his head, gasping. Was this what Snape’s true magic felt like? His fingertips buzzed with excess energy—he thought it was going to explode out of him.

Ever so slowly the feeling subsided. A hand landed on his shoulder and Harry looked up.

“It’s alright,” Snape said.

Harry stood shakily, overwhelmed. “Is that what you’ve been missing for three years?”

“It doesn’t always feel like that. Being connected to another person’s magic can be very intense. Intimate, even.”

Snape steadied him as he wobbled.

“But did you feel it—?” Harry broke off as he caught Snape’s gaze.

He could see that Snape wasn’t unaffected. His colour was high and his eyes dark. Where his hand gripped Harry’s arm it trembled slightly. Harry shivered to feel the heat coming off him as they stood close and regarded each other in silence.

Snape’s grip loosened. Harry reached out with a boldness he didn’t feel at all and laid his hand on Snape’s bare wrist. The scar tissue was rigid and webbed under his fingers.

“Severus,” he said tentatively.

Snape seemed to spring into motion. He pulled Harry into him and his long fingers skated across Harry’s forehead, brushing aside his hair and exposing the lightning bolt.

“Hush,” he said, and leaned in to kiss him.


	13. Tradition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for leaving this on such a cliffhanger last week! Be warned that the fic earns its rating from here on out.

Potter bloomed like a flower opening to the sun under his kiss. Severus’s pulse thundered and the triumphant song of his magic rose in the background— _yes_ , it sang at the culmination of his desires. _Take what’s yours._

Potter’s mouth was soft with the uncertainty of inexperience, which didn’t surprise Severus. His eyes were shut and he gripped Severus’s arm too tightly to keep from showing how his hand shook, but it was he who deepened the kiss and pulled Severus closer. Severus bent, his tongue gently questing and his other arm snaking around Potter’s arched back. Potter broke away with a sigh and came back with lips parted for more.

He rose into Severus as they kissed and Severus was not subtle about pressing back. Potter grew gratifyingly stiff in his trousers, and when he introduced the suggestion of his thigh there he gave way easily. A hint of pressure against his swelling cock had him gasping in Severus’s mouth. Floating in a haze of magic and lust, Severus had little thought but to have Potter do that again. He took his hands to Potter’s arse, the heat of his skin bleeding through the thin fabric of his trousers in a way that made his head spin with possibility. It took only a little coaxing to bring him closer.

Potter dropped his forehead to Severus’s shoulder. The warmth of him flush against Severus’s body ought to be criminal—the almost imperceptible brush of his breath against Severus’s bare neck; the tensing of his muscles when Severus rolled his hips.

“Ah,” Potter gasped out against his neck. He was quick to respond in kind, inexperienced but precocious. Severus shivered at the insistent push of his cock dragging along the muscle of his thigh. His own prick throbbed at the concept of Potter rubbing himself off on him. It had been an inordinately long time since he'd taken a lover, and never like this—in a magnetic rush, overcome with some unspeakable emotion. He kept people, even lovers, at arm's length. But Potter had always gotten under his skin, so why would this be any different?

The sweet drag of his lips over the vulnerable part of Severus's throat was so presumptuous. The way he bravely wound his hand around the back of Severus's neck with his fingers clenching in Severus's hair as he pulled him down for an open-mouthed kiss was so open and fierce at once.

Severus dug his fingers into Potter's arse and encouraged the motion of his hips. Potter moaned and rocked against him rhythmically. He found that he could feel Potter's arousal through the bond. Whether it was because of their physical closeness or his magic returned to him he didn't know or care—he felt Potter's awe and disbelief and the feverish heat that pulsed in him like the emotions were his own. Maybe they were.

Without warning Potter's pulse spiked and his breathing faltered, and Severus knew before the boy stiffened in his arms that he was about to spill his seed in his borrowed pants. Severus groaned and pulled him closer, giving in to impulse and burying his nose in the crook of Potter's neck. Potter’s breath caught. He shuddered against him once and went still.

A moment later he shifted and pulled away. Severus braced himself, but all Potter said was, “Er, my robes.” He laughed sheepishly. “Do you happen to have another spare set?”

“Mitty can bring you your Muggle clothes,” Severus told him.

The crunch of broken glass under their feet seemed to break the spell. Tension crept up his spine. He banished the glass with a wordless wave of his wand, revelling in the ease of it. With a flourish, he righted the twisted wreckage of the cauldron stand and sent all of the ingredients flying back into the cupboard.

“It really worked,” Potter said, his eyes gleaming.

“I have you to thank,” said Severus.

Potter stepped toward him again. “We should celebrate.”

“We’ve nearly missed dinner,” Severus said firmly, deflecting. He put a hand on Potter’s shoulder and steered him out of the lab. “Go change and I’ll meet you in the dining room.”

“Alright.” Potter threw him a grin over his shoulder as he left. He seemed unperturbed. Would this be a shared secret, Severus wondered, or had Potter merely accepted it as one more accolade in a series—that anyone in his radius was inevitably drawn to him? He wasn’t sure if he could bear the humiliation of the latter.

On the other hand, he could sacrifice his ego and take what he wanted, however he got it.

He shut the door and leaned against it, tipping his head back. Adrenaline still coursed through him, making his head light and his stomach tight with a combination of fear and arousal. He rubbed himself through his robe briefly and his neglected cock twitched.

Thoughts of Potter pressing into him, shuddering as he came, his aborted noises, the heat of him, all crowded in his head. He gave in and unbuttoned the waist of his robes to free himself. It only took a handful of firm strokes and he sucked in a sharp breath and came over his fist, his release dripping to the floor.

He wiped his hand on the rag that he used to clean the workbench and tucked himself away. It was too late to make a choice. He already knew he would take whatever Potter was willing to give him.

—

Mitty had set two plates to stay warm, but the elf herself was nowhere to be found when they finally came downstairs for dinner. It was late, nearly sundown. Potter had changed back into his Muggle clothing and was picking at his food when Severus entered. He looked up and turned a spectacular shade of red. Severus had to fight the gratified smirk off his face—it wouldn’t do to look like he was gloating.

“I want to stay at the manor with you,” Potter said abruptly as Severus sat.

Severus lifted the lid off his food. Mitty never failed to impress; a browned Cornish hen rested on a bed of stuffing and summer greens from the vegetable garden. He speared an asparagus with his fork and pretended to contemplate Potter’s demand.

In the end it was painfully obvious what to say, so he gave up stalling. There was no chance he could summon the strength to deny Potter now.

“That is acceptable. We may as well continue our lessons before the start of the school term, anyway. I will organize a Portkey from Banbridge back to London so you can pack your things.”

Potter grinned. “I thought that would be harder to convince you.”

Severus put down his fork. “I have one condition. We must break the bond.”

“But—we don’t need to anymore,” Potter protested, his face falling. “You’re cured. Nagini’s poison can’t affect me.”

“Not everything is about you,” Severus said. He ought to resign himself to the fact that Potter was incapable of thinking of anything _not_ in terms of himself. He was barely twenty-one, after all. "In the simplest terms, I need to understand how my magic has changed because of Nagini and the potion. It's difficult to do that when bond is active."

"I thought you were able to block it out," Potter said.

"I can still feel your spellcasting. And now that my magic has returned you’ll be able to do the same.”

Potter frowned and poked at his food, looking mutinous. Why he was fixated on this Severus couldn’t understand—one would think Potter would be pleased to be rid of him from his head.

"McGonagall made it sound like we needed to end the contract to break the bond.”

Was that it? He was worried for his Patronage?

"Certainly not. It's a simple matter of snuffing it out," he replied.

All of what he’d read since learning of the bond confirmed his fears. It could easily be used against them if an enemy were to find out, therefore it was too dangerous to maintain. At the same time, as a risk-obsessed Gryffindor, this reasoning would fly straight over Potter’s head.

It was a straightforward process to sever it, though. In theory the thing was wholly voluntary. It could be triggered by a magical contract of a particular nature—of which there were many—or by a ritual done at the full moon, or by the joint casting of particular spells. Several sources suggested the Patron contract was designed with this in mind, although it rarely took. Credibility notwithstanding it was in line with the _traditional_ exchange of Patronage: knowledge and power for sex.

Severus rather hoped Potter hadn’t done any reading on the subject himself.

“Then how would we do it?” Potter asked.

“Occlumency,” he said.

Potter had the gall to laugh. “Ironic. I guess you’ll get to teach me after all.”

“An unwilling student is a poor one, or else I would have succeeded at cramming the knowledge into your head before this,” said Severus. “You were convinced it would be useless.”

“I was convinced I’d be rubbish at it,” Potter said. “I’ll do it, then. I’ll break the bond. I still don’t understand why it’s necessary, but I understand that you don’t want it.”

_…that you don’t want me._ The unspoken thought hung in the air. Severus resisted the urge to reach over and shake the boy. That was the problem—he _did_ want Harry. In all the ways he could possibly have him, bond and Patronage notwithstanding. But he would not lead Potter astray and leave them both vulnerable just to please his fool heart.

Severus wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep that night. He lay awake in the massive master bed, trying and failing to meditate as the gentle sounds of the moor drifted in through the window he’d left open. How surreal to find Potter within arms’ reach, however momentarily. He had set Potter up in the role of his naive young paramour to get into Henri Moreau’s good graces, but the idea that it could be the truth on any level had simply never crossed his mind—to push Potter’s boundaries and perhaps even push him away, yes. To unmask them both to each other, preposterous. Yet Potter had revealed himself more clearly than any gesture or word Severus had been subject of in a Muggle bar, by the tilt of his face upward in anticipation of an embrace.

A noise at his door made him startle. It was only a familiar figure looming in the doorway, holding his cloak.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Potter whispered. “Normally I’d take my broom out, but I realized I didn’t bring it.”

Severus’s heart pounded. It was a flimsy excuse for coming to his room. He ought to point this out scathingly but the words didn’t come. He sat up. Potter shut the door behind himself boldly as if what was to happen was a foregone conclusion.

“Can I…?” he asked, paradoxically.

Faint moonlight flooded through the open window and made sharp the square lines and shadows of his face. His eyes were unfocused without his glasses, his hair characteristically untamed, getting long now, and his feet bare. He looked perched on the precipice of youth, ready to leap but not sure which way to aim.

Severus reached over, took the cloak out of his hand and dropped it on the chair beside the bed. Potter took a steadying breath. Severus cupped his cheek and kissed him lingeringly, a reaffirmation.

Potter braced himself on the edge of the bed as he kissed back. Part of him burned at Potter’s fearlessness. Such unearned confidence. Severus himself was terrified, but he had the experience to hide it and a lifetime to reduce his fear into resentment. _He_ would not have sought out Potter in _his_ bedroom with some cock-eyed plan to seduce him merely by shutting them in the same room together. Perhaps, in hindsight, he ought to have.

They broke apart. Potter pulled back to search his eyes. His gaze was sharper this close, and hungry. He crowded in and Severus moved to give him space on the bed.

“This isn’t just a one-time offer, is it?” Potter asked, hovering.

Severus hushed his traitorous heart firmly. “What a tiresome cliche. If you want more than one night, you have only to ask.”

Potter nodded. Then he went on. How Severus wanted him to stop talking.

“You know that the same goes for you, right?”

He smirked and caressed Potter’s already present bulge. “Yes, that’s self-evident.”

“Oh,” Potter said a bit breathlessly, coming forward onto his knees. “Well, I suppose it is.”

He moved quickly to straddle Severus’s hips and leaned down to kiss him from this higher position. Severus was in favour of all of these developments, particularly Potter’s affinity for kissing. He stroked the soft skin behind his ear as their lips met and parted. He sank his fingers into Potter’s wild, dark hair. Potter lowered himself into Severus’s lap until his arse was pressed to Severus’s thighs. His cock tented his borrowed silk sleepwear. As much as Severus enjoyed debauching him while still clothed he was eager to lay his hands on his skin, so when Potter sat back he lifted the hem of his shirt and stripped it off him.

Potter was broad-shouldered and stocky, even as a youth with more growing to do, and his skin was golden from being outdoors all the time. He braced himself over Severus with his hands on the headboard as Severus unlaced the ties of his pants and reached in to draw out Potter’s thick, velvety cock. It was dark with blood and fit into his hand with an eager curve. Potter sucked in a breath and rocked gently into his grip. Liquid welled at the tip of his cock and Severus smeared it across the head with his thumb.

_Good boy_ , he thought.

The bond lit up. Potter let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a whine. “Severus…”

He did it again, making a ring with his fingers around Potter’s cock so that he could fuck the tight circle, which he did eagerly. He left wet spots on Severus’s top as his hips jerked erratically.

The feedback through the bond was incredible. The return of Severus’s magic had strengthened the connection and he realized how shallow it had been before; when he touched Potter he felt a mirrored vibration on his own skin and an anticipation that wasn’t wholly his own.

Suddenly Potter stopped squirming in his lap and sat back. “I want to do something.”

“By all means,” Severus said, pulling off his own top. He was too old to be self-conscious about his body—Nagini’s vicious bite had left angry scars in his neck and shoulder, and decades of brewing had rendered him strong, if not fit. But Potter watched him like a hawk as he disrobed and he was suddenly glad that there was only moonlight to see by.

He lay back. Potter shifted so that he straddled Severus’s knees and pulled back the covers. Carefully, he slid Severus’s sleep pants down over his narrow hips to expose him. Severus watched as he took it in hand and stroked it experimentally. It was obvious Potter had never been with a man before. He’d been almost certain before but now he knew abruptly, as if Potter had deposited the knowledge straight into his mind. He was disturbed to learn that he cared, and that furthermore it pleased him.

Potter leaned over and Severus barely had any warning at all before he took Severus in. His mouth was hot and wet and not tentative at all. Severus gripped the sheet to remind himself not to move, tendons straining in his neck as he looked down. Potter got a hand around him and applied his tongue liberally, making up for his inexperience with an eagerness that made Severus want to bend him over. He groaned at the sight of Potter’s dark head bobbing between his legs.

“Merlin, you’re a natural,” he muttered.

Potter raised his head with a self-satisfied gleam in his eye. “A natural cock-sucker. There’s one I haven’t heard before.”

Severus fell back against the pillow and put a hand over his eyes. “Shameless boy.”

Potter didn’t respond, only made an incoherent noise and took him down deeper. Severus looked to see Potter with his hand on his own prick, moaning around Severus’s cock like there was nothing he’d rather be doing. He let his head drop. He surely wasn’t going to survive this.

“Come up here,” he said, gripping Potter by the back of the neck and drawing him off.

“God, keep doing that,” he panted.

Severus pushed himself up. “This?” he asked, tightening his grip in Potter’s hair.

The boy’s jaw went lax and he shut his eyes. “Yeah.”

A thought came to him. “Do you want to suck my cock until you get off?”

“Oh,” Potter said a bit dazedly. “Yeah, that.”

He gently guided Potter back. It was almost like reaching a higher plane, to have his fingers pressing into the back of Potter’s skull and the sloppy heat of Potter’s mouth on him and to feel simultaneously the ghost of his own hand on himself and his dizzy pleasure. Sooner than he thought possible he was spiralling toward climax and gasping as he came over Potter’s sweet tongue.

Potter moaned and shuddered under his hand. Slowly, Severus released him and he let his cock slip from between his lips. Potter wiped his mouth and soiled hand on the sheet and collapsed with his head on Severus’s thigh.

“Is it always like that?” he asked breathlessly.

“Well,” Severus said, a bit stunned himself. “Not exactly.”

Potter threw a casual arm across his hips and caressed Severus’s ribs with his calloused fingers, the gesture absentminded. “Then I’m happy I got to find out what it was like before we break the bond.”

“Yes.” He smoothed Potter’s hair from his forehead. Potter’s gentled temperament post-sex compelled him to honesty. “I am, too.”


	14. Breaking the Bond

Harry woke to the pleasant quiet of morning with the sun rising through the open window, illuminating an unnaturally early hour. He groaned and put his back to the light, nearly rolling into Snape for his trouble.

He threw an arm over Snape’s chest and thrust his face into the man’s ribs. “Close the curtains,” he mumbled.

Snape groaned and pushed him off with one hand. “Are you always this irritating in the mornings?”

Harry felt him shift about, and the curtains closed themselves a moment later.

“Show-off,” he said.

Snape drew him down roughly to his chest. “Go back to sleep.”

“I read that sexual relationships in a Patronage are common," Harry said later in the morning as Snape drew a bath for them.

"Did you read it or did Granger tell you this out of concern for your virtue?" Snape leaned over the claw-footed tub and tested the water. Not everything in a wizard's household used magic, it seemed.

"Hermione gave me the book," Harry admitted. He'd never been big on research—he was a man of action, not reading. But when Snape ran away to Prince Manor he’d been more motivated than before to understand what he’d gotten himself into. Similarly, their disquieting encounter with Moreau made him realize how much he was relying on Snape to guide him when Snape was clearly far too used to treating all forms of knowledge as secrets to be doled out. So he'd read the book and found it illuminating.

"Sex is not only common, but at many points in history it was expected," Snape said. The incongruity of his nakedness and his lecturing tone was strange but didn’t do much to dampen the eroticism of watching Snape bend over the bathtub. Harry wondered if he had a weird fetish for authority figures or something equally embarrassing. "It was considered one of the more pleasant and mutually beneficial parts of the arrangement."

Harry made a face, thinking of all the hopeful candidates who'd sent him letters. Had they been hoping for... this? "Seems a bit questionable, morally speaking."

"Yes, well, the aristocracy has never been known for their high moral fiber," Snape pointed out.

"I grew up solidly middle class with Protestant ethics,” Harry said. "Well, the Dursleys were middle class—I suppose I was a peasant. But the point is that I'm a big fan of non-coercive sex. You don't see this as part of the contract, do you?" he asked with sudden worry.

"Yes, _duty_ is what I’m thinking of when I have a young, fit athlete in my bed,” Snape said dryly. "The bath is ready, if you please."

Now that the thought had come to him, however, it was difficult to dispel. Harry scrubbed at his hair and ducked under the water while Snape sat next to the tub on a stool, still very naked, reading some text on potions so advanced in age it was held together by gut string and a prayer. Harry leaned over the side of the tub and Snape shifted the manuscript out of range incrementally.

"It just seems like the type of thing you would do," said Harry. "Martyr yourself. For sex, that is."

Snape regarded him levelly. "That's rich coming from someone who literally died to save the wizarding world from the Dark Lord."

He stood up and put the document on the small table in the corner of the room. Harry shrugged and interlaced his fingers across the lip of the tub. "I had to do it. I guess I’m trying to say that you don't have to do anything. I know I dragged you into all this and that you didn’t have much of a choice.”

Snape stepped into the tub, which was by no means large enough for two full grown men. He pushed Harry's legs apart.

"I would have ended up a miserable Squib if you hadn't come barging into my office with your ridiculous proposition," said Snape, taking him in hand.

"Oh—well—” Harry gasped. "I would've been chased all over London by horny, middle-aged witches, I expect, until I gave in and signed a contract with one of them."

"Are you quite finished?" Snape's long fingers slid down his shaft to press firmly behind his balls.

Harry tipped his head back and moaned. "Fuck, yes, just don't stop."

"I've no intention of it."

Snape swallowed him nearly all the way down and Harry tried not to choke on his spit or be too rude about getting the most thorough blowjob if his life. He gripped the sides of the tub and was generally wanton throughout. Snape’s fingers inched toward Harry's arse, which he was both desperate for and desperately terrified of. Of course he'd thought about being fucked before—as a part of his gay awakening, so to speak—but it was one thing to think it and another thing altogether to let someone put their fingers in your arse. Or their cock.

Harry rather thought he'd like it, especially from Snape, but he was hoping they could do a bit more kissing first.

But Snape didn’t push it. Instead he massaged Harry's prostate from the outside until he was incoherent, not having known that it could make your legs melt to have someone rub your taint. His climax slammed into him without warning. He cried out and arched into Snape's mouth and Snape swallowed with grace. His free hand dug into Harry's arse so hard it would probably leave a bruise.

Finally Snape lowered him into the water and sat back. His prick stood at attention, neglected, and Harry reached to return the favour. Snape stopped him.

"Outside of the tub," he said. "It's harder than it looks at this angle.”

"I'm up for it," Harry said, a bit indignant.

"No doubt," Snape agreed with the usual lack of inflection which suggested he didn't agree in the slightest. "But I have something in mind."

Well, he wasn't going to say no to that. He followed Snape into the bedroom with his heart pounding in anticipation.

"Lay on your side," Snape said, opening the bedside drawer.

"Er, like this?" He lay with his back to Snape, although it felt weird and vulnerable.

"That will do."

The bed shifted. Snape braced himself over Harry and lay behind him, with his chest flush to Harry's back and his hard cock pressing like a brand into the crack of his arse. He sucked in a breath.

Snape inserted his arm between Harry's ribs and the mattress and pressed his hand flat to Harry's chest.

"Relax," he growled in Harry's ear, his breath hot. Harry tried not to squirm. He was getting aroused again by Snape's proximity. Men definitely did it for him—if he’d been unsure before, now he was fully on board.

Snape leaned back slightly and did something out of view. A cool liquid trickled over Harry's arse and thighs. With one hand Snape rubbed his cock along the same path, up Harry's arse, pausing at his arsehole to press there—maddeningly—before sliding it across the smooth skin behind his balls. Harry groaned and moved back against him.

“Tighten your legs,” Snape said, sounding breathless. He pulled back and thrust forward again and Harry got the idea.

He flexed his thigh muscles so they formed a tight, slippery channel. Snape pulled him against his chest and rolled his hips as if he was actually fucking him and his breath quickened against the Harry’s skin. With his other hand he reached down and cupped Harry’s half-hard cock, palming it gently. The feeling of Snape sliding against that intimate stretch of skin was driving Harry slowly mad. He wanted more, but of what he didn’t know. He put his hand over Snape’s and pushed down encouragingly.

Snape made a bitten-off noise against his shoulder and thrust roughly between Harry’s legs. “Will you come again?” he asked suddenly.

“Fuck yes, I will,” said Harry.

He wrapped his fingers around Harry and stroked him gently in opposition to the jerk of his hips. Harry clawed at the sheets and panted and tried not to beg. The hand on his chest roamed upward to rub and twist his nipples in turn. He quickly found holding back to be overrated.

“Nngh,” he gasped. “Please.”

Snape stilled. His teeth dug into the juncture of Harry’s neck. Heat bloomed between his thighs and Snape pulled back abruptly to release the last of his come over Harry’s arse.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed. He could hardly think. Snape’s hand withdrew from his cock and his fingers slid through the mess.

“Touch yourself,” he ordered. He wiped his come against Harry’s arsehole and slowly pressed one finger inside. It went in easily.

“God,” Harry moaned, unprepared.

It felt different—more intense—than he’d fantasized about. It was uncomfortable in a weirdly decadent way, like the burn of Firewhisky followed by the breathlessness as it hit you. Snape pulled his arse cheeks apart with one hand and fucked him with the other, dragging his finger mercilessly over Harry’s prostate. Harry was pretty sure he started begging again. Snape was murmuring something in his ear about how much he wanted to fuck Harry, which turned him on so much he thought he was going to die. He came hard a second time, crying out.

Slowly Snape pulled out his finger and released Harry’s arse. Harry breathed heavily into the sheets, wrung out. He felt Snape get up and leave, and a moment later he returned with a washcloth.

“Gonna need a second bath,” Harry mumbled.

Snape wiped him down gently. Harry winced when he reached his arse—he felt a bit like he didn’t want anything near there at the moment. Snape rolled him over with strong hands.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.” Harry looked up at him. His dark eyes were serious. His hair was coming out of its tail from their vigorous activity. The dark flush of orgasm stained his narrow, sharp-lined face. Harry reached up and pressed his thumb into Snape’s jaw. “Kiss me,” he demanded.

Snape bent down and touched his lips to Harry’s chastely. “Out of bed,” he said. “It’s time to break the bond.”

Snape closed the curtains, leaving the room cool and dark. They sat across from each other on the thick plush rug, Harry in his borrowed green pyjama shirt and Snape in a silk robe that Harry was pretty sure he’d brought from Hogwarts, as it had a Slytherin crest over the breast. He had tied it loosely at the waist, but it didn’t leave much to the imagination. Harry tried not to get distracted by Snape’s obvious nakedness. His prick rested in the dark thatch of hair at the apex of his pale, corded thighs. A trail of hair pointed up from groin to navel and faded outward in a delta across his chest. It was spattered with silver, like the hair at Snape’s temple. There was so much that Harry had not imagined he’d want in a lover, and yet it warmed him.

“Close your eyes,” Snape directed. Harry obliged. “Deepen your breathing. Picture the bond in your mind like a thread connecting us. Breathe in, count to three. Breathe out.”

He counted for five breaths, then fell silent. At first Harry didn’t notice anything different. He had tried examining the bond in the time that Snape had been away—once he knew it existed he could sense it was there—but it remained elusive. It was like an itch or a spark at the back of his mind, something intangible that he couldn’t see or grasp.

As he breathed in and out he heard Snape’s breath slow to match to his own. He became aware of lightness in his limbs and a persistent tingle in the back of his neck.

“Open your eyes,” Snape said.

Harry opened his eyes.

He was standing in a field. It was night; a cool breeze brushed over his skin and he could smell the bruised grass under his feet. Above him, a streak of silver arced across the sky like a comet.

“How—?”

“This is the metaphysical plane,” said Snape. “It’s where the bond is most salient. You should be able to see a mental image of my Occlumental shield. The field and the night sky are yours, I imagine.”

“It’s the Quidditch pitch,” Harry said, looking around. “Where I go when I can’t sleep.”

“It’s an open invitation, is what it is,” said Snape in rebuke.

“To who?” Harry asked. “Voldemort is dead.”

“Evil is a constant in this world, Potter. Kill it and it takes another form. The Dark Lord may be gone but there are hundreds of worms squabbling in the dirt who are eager to feast on the flesh of his ideals.”

“Cheery.” Harry turned in a circle, taking in the surrounding hillside. It looked like the country around Hogwarts—wild and open. “Where’s your metaphysical—er, thing?”

“Metaphysical construction. The manifestation of my Occlumency.” Snape pointed across the field to a forbidding wall which rose high in the distance.

Harry shivered in recognition. “It’s a maze. Like the one they built for the Triwizard Tournament.”

“The inspiration is much older than that,” Snape said, but Harry couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding it gave him to be in the shadow of the wall.

“So what do I need to do?” he asked instead, focusing on Snape.

“You will have to build a shield. It needn’t be as complex as a maze, but it must have fortification enough to stifle the bond. Picture it, and whatever you imagine will take shape here. The bond will be stifled from both ends and eventually it will cease to be.”

Harry frowned. “How come you didn’t teach me Occlumency this way before?”

“This is a highly advanced technique,” said Snape. “It is unlikely you would be able to reach the metaphysical world if we weren’t bonded. Concentrate, Potter—this isn’t easy.”

He turned to the open field and focused on Snape’s guiding words.

“Imagine a safe place. Somewhere impenetrable, which no wizard could break into and no beast could besiege. Imagine it all around you.”

Slowly, Quidditch pitch blurred and shifted around them. It began to twist and reform. The stands melted away and the gleaming hoops vanished into the air. In its place walls came up and sconces formed out of nothing; stones shifted and fell into place and tapestries unrolled. Millions of candles rose like fireflies into the night sky. The silver streak of the bond was engulfed by the crenelated stone rampart of a familiar tower. Harry looked up as the castle formed before their eyes.

“Ah, of course. Hogwarts.” Snape’s tone was disapproving, but Harry could tell by the lack of rancour that he was pleased. “Lack of imagination, Potter.”

It wasn’t the Hogwarts of today—Harry knew just by looking. The edges were soft with the age of the memory. It was the Hogwarts of ten years ago: the Hogwarts where Harry had his first Christmas, helped Norbert escape, and faced Voldemort for the first time. Through these halls a much younger Snape stalked endlessly, watching over a much younger Harry and performing spells in secret to keep him from harm.

Harry felt the bond fading already and he tried not to be melancholy about it. This time when he blinked and opened his eyes they were back in Prince Manor on the floor of Snape’s room.

“The shield will dissipate as the bond does, since it’s unlikely you’ll be able to hold the construct in your mind,” said Snape, unfolding himself. “But try—it is a good exercise.”

He undid his robe and searched through his drawers, taking out the old-fashioned underclothing he favoured. Harry leaned back on his palms and watched him, appreciative of Snape’s absolute lack of shame. But his mind was on the maze—that great wall that loomed over the landscape, forbidding all comers.

What was Snape hiding in the maze that he feared Harry would see?


	15. Folie a Deux

The next day they resumed Potter’s lessons. It was an odd dance of give-and-take; Severus didn’t examine why he felt obligated to _give_ at this moment.

To Severus’s surprise Potter had been practicing on his own, and he had to concede that perhaps the boy was serious about learning after all. However, now that Severus had his magic back he could do the task justice. It was clear that while Potter tolerated other methods it was through action that he flourished—nauseatingly typical of him, but Severus couldn’t argue with results. There wasn’t any point in forcing Potter to do rote spellwork if it didn’t get him anywhere.

It wasn’t entirely altruistic, either. Severus was eager to test the limits of his own magic.

He set up a duelling platform inside the manor, but during the first lesson the atrium sustained not-inconsequential damage from the vigour of their spellcasting and an irate Mitty chased them outside. The protection charms on the manor were old and weak, and Severus had underestimated how easily two full-grown, powerful wizards could lay waste to it.

“Why don’t we update the charms?” Potter asked after they’d been given a thorough tongue-lashing.

Severus shook his head. “Some things must be left to professionals. It’s not as simple as reading a book and casting a spell. Old houses are temperamental and delicate.”

“How did they do it at Hogwarts? Neville told me after the battle there was a lot of damage that had to be repaired.”

They sat outside for a short luncheon. Potter lay on his back in the dry grass and spoke toward the sky. Severus tried to conduct himself in a manner more appropriate for his age, sitting cross-legged on a cushion he’d taken from the library.

With the return of his magic he felt like the oppressive stone of the Dark Lord’s reign had at last been lifted from his shoulders. _Live however you wish_ , whispered the insidious voice of his id, but although it was a heady thought he knew it was ultimately a trap. The feeling of freedom would not last.

He and Potter were living in a protected bubble—just the two of them and an irascible house elf in a fairytale castle on the moors. But it was an illusion.

Severus had set up the Floo so that Potter could come and go as he pleased to visit friends and attend practice, and on the occasions that Potter was gone he felt as if he were emerging from the fog of a dream into cold reality: one day Potter would be gone for good. This season was temporary, and Potter was sure to tire of spending time with his irritable old professor soon enough.

He handed Potter a slice of watermelon and put the thought out of his head. He had many long years of experience waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop and when it finally had he’d survived it after all. He would survive this inconsequential heartbreak, too, when the time came.

Besides, he was vindicated in the way that Potter seemed to be similarly avoiding the real world—hiding out in Ireland while his friends prepared for their wedding, halfheartedly playing Quidditch as Death Eaters strolled free around London. And putting off searching for a more appropriate partner who might give him what he deserved—love, a family—in favour of this unlikely affair.

“At Hogwarts there was Minerva to oversee the repairs. Not to mention Filius Flitwick, who is at least as competent as any magical bricklayer,” he told Potter. “As for the manor, the Prince fortune has atrophied since medieval times. I unfortunately will not have the funds for repairs for some time. In the meantime we will continue our practice outdoors.”

“What if it rains?” Potter threw an arm over his forehead to shade his eyes from the sun.

Severus snorted. “What if it rains during Quidditch practice?”

“We carry on,” Potter said grudgingly. “Weather shielding charms are too time consuming for everyday practice.”

“There you have it.” He separated a bunch of chilled grapes from their stems and popped one into his mouth. Potter propped himself up and gestured for one, and Severus obliged. The boy ate like—well, a youthful athlete. If Severus had been a poorer man he’d worry about Potter’s appetite draining his coffers.

“Right.” Potter sat up. “Should we get started, then?”

“We’ll use the orchard,” said Severus.

“There’s an orchard? What on earth do you need an orchard for?”

Severus didn’t dignify that with an answer. Potter’s Muggle family may have been what Muggles considered middle class but it was clear that he had no concept of old blood, Muggle or otherwise. He himself was from a long, distinguished line—the Potters had been landed gentry until a few centuries ago—and yet he seemed disdainful of money and the very concept of using it. It was an attitude startlingly similar to the one Severus himself had fostered over the years, a careful deflection away from the question that always came up when one spent time in any old family’s company: _what kind of wealth do you have_?

In Severus’s case it had been Lucius Malfoy, subtly prodding him to prove his worth in terms he understood when in fact Severus had been poorer than Lucius could probably conceive of. In Potter’s case he suspected it was the Weasleys’ influence. The moneyed elite were the enemy to a Weasley. Potter would not align himself with them.

The Prince ‘orchard’ was really not much more than a few fruit trees in a fallow field, which seemed to mollify Potter. Out at the edge of the orchard there was an open spot, little more than a raised hump in the muddy field. At one point it would have been the wall from which wizards would have defended the manor against intruders coming in from the moors, but it had long since grown over. Now it provided a long, wide hill where the two of them could duel.

They began as before by duelling with their non-dominant hands, Potter with his left and Severus with his right. Unlike their first doomed attempt, this time they were more evenly matched. Severus could see that with practice Potter might become a champion dueller, better than himself and many of his peers who had practiced for years. He was strong, fast, and dogged.

But in between, he could clearly see the problem: Potter wasn’t particularly inventive, nor did he even seem to consider inventiveness an asset. He telegraphed his next move. He relied too heavily on _Expelliarmus,_ which Severus could easily see coming and dodge with ease. Most frustratingly, he had nothing new in his repertoire that he hadn’t learned in school.

He had to admit that this last wasn’t entirely Potter’s fault; his Defence Against the Dark Arts education amounted to little more than a handful of interesting facts and spells from the assorted clowns who’d held the post. Nevertheless there was something that could be done about it.

“Hexes and Jinxes of the Modern Era,” Potter read from the tome Severus dropped before him. He blew out a sigh. “I’m rubbish at studying.”

“You _believe_ yourself to be rubbish at studying,” Severus corrected. “Your only comparison has been Ms Granger. Of course you’re rubbish at studying next to her. You must rethink yourself as being adequate at studying and you’ll find it comes easier to you.”

“You’re suggesting I lower my expectations.” Potter raised an eyebrow in an eery mimic of one of Severus’s own expressions. “Not what I thought I’d ever hear from you.”

“And you won’t hear it again.” Severus set a small figurine before him. It was an enchanted doll made out of straw in the shape of a man. It walked about under a spell, pacing back and forth on the table. “You may practice spellwork on the effigy. Theory is all well and good, but this vein of magic is ultimately practical.”

Potter peered at the little man with his chin on his hands. “It looks like you.”

“Picture me if it makes you feel better.” Severus smirked.

“I shan’t,” said Potter contrarily. “I wouldn’t use these spells in a practice duel anyway. I don’t want to give you boils or—” He consulted the book. “Tiny lesions on your arms. Ugh!”

“Most spells can be healed with a potion. You need to become accustomed to casting with intent,” said Severus. “The whole point is that you won’t always be duelling for practice.”

“A Quidditch player doesn’t have any use for duelling.” Potter propped his chin on his hands and scowled, the picture of a recalcitrant youth. Severus found himself both repelled and fascinated. “Everyone expects me to sign with the league anyway.”

“Then why ask to learn wandless magic?” Severus said exasperatedly. “When have you cared a whit for other peoples’ opinions? What do _you_ want?”

“I want to be an Auror,” he muttered, looking at the table.

“Then do it.” Severus sat next to him. It was strange to consider himself a mentor to anyone, but at the same time painfully evident that Potter needed guidance. Who was left to point him in the right direction? There were no Albus Dumbledore’s or Sirius Black’s anymore. The task fell to him. Potter had _chosen_ him, however inexplicably.

“Hermione says I can become an Auror later,” Potter said stubbornly.

Severus rolled his eyes. “Granger will tell you whatever you want to hear. Why haven’t you applied for the entrance exams?”

“You need an Outstanding or Exceeds Expectations on your NEWT’s to qualify. I didn’t take my NEWT’s after the war and now I’m too old to do it.”

The cutoff for NEWT’s was twenty. Severus wondered if he’d stalled for this long on purpose. “Rubbish. That utter Gryffindor Robards would take your application in a heartbeat. He’d be falling over himself to get you into the program.”

Potter scowled even more fiercely, if it was possible. “I don’t want to get in just because I’m _Harry Potter._ I want to do things of my own merit.”

“You’re a fool if you think you haven’t proven your worth already,” Severus told him stiffly. “Ten times over, in their eyes.”

“I’m not fishing for compliments.” Potter sighed. He picked up the little effigy and turned it over in his hands. “It really does look like you.”

The little thing struggled in his hands, driven by the magic inside it to fulfil its purpose. “It’s my spell,” Severus admitted. “A toy for a bored child.”

“How many people can invent spells like this?” He put the figure down on the table again and it resumed its endless pacing. It would walk back and forth until the spell wore off in a few days, if it wasn’t destroyed before then.

“A handful, perhaps a couple dozen in England. Is that what you want? Skill and power?”

“No.” Potter dismissed the idea. "What's the use of that?”

“Then what?" Severus pushed.

“I don't know!” Potter snapped. “I’ve spent the last three years trying to figure it out but I'm no closer than I was when the war ended. I don't have anything. I've died, I've killed the greatest Dark wizard of our era, and now I play little league Quidditch and whinge about my life. What's my great purpose? What's the use of any of it?” He crossed his arms, his cheeks flushed with the energy of his outburst. "What do _you_ want? To teach at Hogwarts forever? Don't you want something more?"

Severus spun the effigy around and sent it walking stiffly back toward Potter. He forced himself to speak the truth in return.

"I don't know."

It wasn't a surprise to him that they were both adrift in the world. Trying to restore his magic had given him focus and purpose, but now Prince Manor felt like a holding place. In two weeks he would return to Hogwarts and carry on as he had for decades already, with the added benefit of Potter's occasional—and fleeting—company. Wizards lived for a very long time, even considering that Nagini's poison may have done more permanent and as yet invisible damage. When Harry at last left him twice desolate would he merely remain at Hogwarts, retreating like a wounded beast into himself to become more bitter, more disillusioned?

In truth, Severus didn't believe he was capable of anything else.

That night they retired to separate rooms, but Potter came again to his bed as the light faded. This time there was no pretense. Severus set aside his book and Potter stripped off his top. His skin was gently golden in the light of the old lamp, an invitation to touch. Severus unbuttoned his pyjamas and flipped back the cover to stand so that he could fold them and put them on the chair. Potter chuckled as he did.

"You're so fastidious."

"Did you learn a new word today?" Severus asked snidely.

"Oh, don't be offended. It's charming."

Severus wasn't sure which of those observations was more distasteful—the idea that his tidiness was amusing or that it was _charming_. He pinched the corners of his folded shirt roughly. "Do get on the bed."

Potter sat, fully nude now, his chest flushed with anticipation. Severus paused to drink him in, the ink-stain of hair and the square jaw from his mother's Welsh side, the coltishness of his limbs tempered by his youthful confidence and muscle. He leaned back on his hands, purposefully stretching out under Severus's gaze. His cock was already fattening in its nest of dark curls.

"Like what you see?" he asked boldly. Severus ignored the question.

"Have you been fucked before?"

Potter blushed and his fingers twitched in the duvet. "No." It came out defensive.

Severus nudged apart Harry’s knees with his thigh. He took Harry in hand and massaged him into full stiffness, maintaining a distance between them. Harry arched into his hand, eyes fixed on Severus, waiting. He so wanted someone to lead him and tell him how it would be. And yet outside of the bedroom Severus found _himself_ led, buffeted by the force of Potter’s personality.

"Do you want me to fuck you?"

Harry sucked in a breath and his legs fell wider apart. "Do you want to?" he returned instead of an answer.

_Of course I do,_ Severus wanted to say. _You're young and beautiful and you've never been fucked, of course I want to be the first._ To give him that heady feeling, to render him speechless with the weight of it, would be a particular victory that Severus felt almost sick thinking about. One he'd never asked for but couldn't help feeling owed.

He released him and stepped back. He wouldn’t—Potter wasn’t for him. Not today.

Harry caressed himself casually, mimicking the motion Severus had made. He swallowed and the redness crept up his cheeks. “Will you use your fingers?

Severus slid his hand up Potter’s thigh, stroking the warm skin under the soft, dark scattering of hair there. Potter’s breath hitched and the muscles in his leg tensed. He brushed his fingers over the thick, dark curls at his groin and smoothed his thumb over the cut of his hip. All incandescently perfect to his starved heart.

“Get on the bed and turn over,” he said.

Potter complied, laying on his front and peeking back at Severus over his shoulder. “Like this?”

“Lift your hips.” He slid a pillow under him, paying no attention to Potter’s neglected cock.

It was different with the bond fading between them. Not as intense as before, and certainly not as intimate. In some ways it was a relief to return to a place where he was in control.

He spread Potter’s arse cheeks and dripped oil between them and on his fingers. Potter held very still, like he was afraid Severus might take it back, his dark head buried in the sheets. He ran his fingers gently over the puckered hole and Potter twitched.

“Have you done this to yourself before?” he asked, leaning over.

Potter shook his head. “Yesterday was the first time.”

“Saving yourself for someone special?” he pressed, some masochistic part of him needing to know.

Potter turned his head to look at Severus with one glittering eye. “I didn’t know for sure that I’d like it until—”

Severus bent over him and pressed one finger into the tight ring of muscle. Potter let out a moan and shut his eyes.

“Until what?”

“Until I thought about you doing it,” Potter blurted out into the bedspread. “I thought it was just a weird fantasy I had in sixth year, but lately I’ve thought about it more and more.”

Severus’s stomach clenched with the implication. Potter shifted restlessly under him, hands fisted in the sheets. Severus brushed his lips along the crest of his shoulder blade as he fucked him with one finger. He carefully pressed a second one in beside it.

“Keep going,” he murmured.

“I thought about your hands holding me down,” Potter gasped. “I imagined you doing this.”

“Christ,” Severus profaned. He sat back, reluctant to separate but desperately needing to get a hand on himself.

“After you said you fancied men… I thought about what it would be like if you fucked me,” Potter went on, devastatingly. “But I didn’t touch myself like this. I waited.”

Severus groaned and worked his cock frantically. Where had the boy learned to be so shameless? He was overcome, imagining Potter alone in his bed, wanking under the covers as he fantasized about being held down. Had he thought about it when they shared a tent the way Severus had?

Potter pushed his arse into Severus’s hand. “God, that feels so good. I think I’m going to come—”

He arched and went silent and his arse clamped down on Severus’s fingers. Severus cursed and leaned over Potter as his own orgasm pulsed through him, his come spurting over Potter’s naked back. He wanted to slide his cock up into the tight place his fingers had been and stay there, to mark Potter indelibly so that some part of him would always belong to Severus.

He un-straddled Potter and stood shakily to wipe his fingers. “You have a filthy mouth.”

Potter rolled over, a gleam in his eye. “You like it, though. I like that you do.”

“Did you really—” Severus hesitated. _Imagine me?_ “Back then?”

It wasn’t a stretch to think of a young wizard considering an amorous relationship with his older mentor, no matter the difference in age or appearance. Severus was no Gilderoy Lockhart, but he didn’t have any illusions about his strengths in that regard—too severe a profile to be considered classically handsome, perhaps, but he’d had his share of overtures. Though not for many years now.

But for Potter to admit that when he was _sixteen_ he’d conjured up some image of the person he hated most in the world aside from the Dark Lord and perhaps Draco Malfoy—well, certainly the brain was a complicated organ.

Potter turned serious. “It’s true,” he said quietly, sitting up. “I did think about you when I, er, fantasized. I didn’t mean to. A lot was happening in sixth year, and I was… confused. I wasn’t sure about myself. I’d only just started to be interested in girls but I couldn’t figure out why I was such a late bloomer. When we started Occlumency lessons I was petrified you’d find out.”

“I would have never held it against you,” Severus said vehemently. His hands tightened on the cloth he was holding. A post-coital chill had settled on him.

“I know that _now_ , but I certainly didn’t then.” Potter looked up at him. “It’s alright, though. It all worked out in the end.”

Trust Potter to settle on the worst possible pillow talk. Severus sighed and tried to dissipate the sudden tension in his shoulders. “Turn around and I’ll clean you up.”

Potter lay down again. “You take good care of me,” he said drowsily. “I want to do the same someday.”

Severus didn’t respond. He didn’t need taking care of, but it would be churlish to say so.


	16. Leaving the Cave

Harry woke a few times in the night and went to the window Snape kept habitually open. The night pulled to him, telling him to go out, take his broom and fly in circles until he was too exhausted to turn things over in his mind anymore. He struggled to think of anyone in his life as being permanent, but Snape was like a refrain—coming round again and again, slightly different each time. Only this time the stain of the past was lesser, the Dark Mark fading to a scar, the terrible war exiled to nightmare.

He wasn’t a natural ruminator, though, and he knew that whether Snape stayed or left one way or the other wasn’t up to him. He could only express himself clumsily and with his usual brash Gryffindorish-ness—as Snape would say. He looked back at the man asleep in the bed, a dark shadow among other shadows, and a strange emotion welled up from the pit of his stomach and filled his throat with warmth. He turned away from the window and crawled back into bed. Snape shifted and grumbled, petting Harry's flank roughly before falling back into sleep.

The first game of the pre-season came the week before Snape was due back at Hogwarts. The morning of, Harry woke early. He fished out the book on the Irvine Rating Scale of Ability that Snape had lent him and left it on the table before he went to pre-game practice. He added a note with a quill and parchment from the library—Snape hadn't accepted the twenty first century into his heart and still refused to use a ballpoint.

_Can't take my NEWT's,_ he wrote, _maybe this will do._

He left quickly before he could take it back.

"You're awfully cheerful lately, Potter," said Dalton at practice. "Keep that energy up for the game!”

"I bet Potter's got a new lass," their Chaser joked. He clapped Harry on the arm as he passed on his way to the pitch.

"Nah, mate," Harry said evasively, grinning. "Just enjoying a bit of a vacation in between practice before the season kicks off."

"Oh, a vacation, is it?" said O'Malley, one of the Beaters. He smirked and shouldered his bat. He was well into his forties and would be playing little league Quidditch for the rest of his career, however long it lasted. Like much of the team he had a second job to pay the bills. “Nice to be young and unattached.”

"Just make sure you're keeping in shape!" Dalton commanded.

"You know me." Harry laughed to keep his discomfort from showing and kicked off, spinning toward the opposite hoop.

They were nice enough fellows and they didn’t pry much, which he appreciated. Still, he didn’t fancy sharing his personal life with them. Being Harry Potter was one thing. Being a pouf was something entirely different.

Later that day at lunch Ron commented similarly on his high spirits, although with more suspicion.

"You look happy, mate," Ron said now, holding Harry at arm's length. "You sure Snape's not dosing you with something?"

"I am happy," Harry said firmly. "Severus has been perfectly fine. And anyway, he's practically pleasant since his magic was restored—it's a bit odd, to be honest."

"Blimey, I can't imagine the old bat in a good mood," said Ron. "You must be a good influence on him."

Harry grimaced. “Would you, er... would you go easy on him? He's going to be my Patron for a couple years at least. He gets enough of that stuff from his students.”

"Yeah, of course." Ron frowned. "It's not like he's the enemy. He's just a massive berk. But I can play nice if he does. You picked him, after all—you must've had a good reason."

"Thanks," Harry said, relieved.

"Harry." Ron propped his elbows on the formica tabletop and leaned in, suddenly serious. "There’s something else I wanted to talk about.”

“Yeah?” Harry felt a pinch of fear in his stomach. Ron’s normally beguiling expression was sombre.

“Hermione told me you like men.”

Harry’s hand tightened on the menu. Guilt prodded him. He’d been meaning to tell Ron—of course he had—but it was hard to find the right time. It wasn’t like they regularly sat down for a heart-to-heart. And just because a bloke’s brother was gay didn’t mean his best friend would get the same leeway.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he began.

“So it’s true,” Ron said.

“Yeah,” Harry admitted, bracing himself. “I was going to tell you.”

Ron shrugged. “I can’t say I’m not hurt. We lived together for two years.”

He nodded mutely.

“But you’ve always got something complicated going on up there—“ Ron wiggled his fingers demonstratively. “So I don’t blame you. I figure Hermione thought I'd be weird about it cause of Gin, which—well, the less said the better. I just wanted you to know that you can talk to me about this kind of stuff. Us Weasleys might be loud and crude sometimes, but I’d never go around telling people or taking the piss. I’m your best friend and I love you, mate. No matter who you’re shacking up with.”

He said it with such utter sincerity that Harry’s face heated. “Thanks, Ron. That means a lot.”

“Yeah, well, Charlie would also murder me if he found out I was an arse about it.” Ron grinned. “Just give us a heads up if you bring a bloke around to the family gathering.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, taking a drink to hide his embarrassment. “That won’t happen anytime soon, don’t worry.”

Ron got a gleam in his eye. “You seeing anyone, then?”

He hesitated. “Kind of. But it’s not like I’ll be introducing him to the family or anything. Not yet, at least.”

He couldn’t imagine Snape at the Burrow, anyway. It gave him a strange frisson of insecurity. The reality was that their two worlds were incredibly different, and the points of overlap were few.

Ron only nodded and changed the subject to Quidditch, and Harry was gratefully reminded of his unflappability.

Harry tumbled out of the Floo that night flushed with victory and in high spirits. Snape was settled in the chair closest to the fireplace reading a new Potions text. It was raining in the green land; Harry could hear it against the window. He swept the hair out of his face and grinned at Snape’s sour expression.

“Don’t get soot on the carpet,” Snape ordered.

Harry snapped his fingers and his Quidditch robes billowed. Dust flew everywhere and disappeared with a rush. A smile twitched at the corners of Snape’s mouth and he turned back to his book.

“Done and done,” Harry said.

“I presume from your unnecessary exuberance that you trounced the other team,” he said.

“Thoroughly,” Harry agreed, unlacing his boots. “And good thing, too. Only the first game of the season and there were scouts from the Falmouth Falcons in the stands. I spotted them in the intermission. Moran—our Chaser—has to make a good showing this year. He’s hoping to make the team.”

“And you?” Snape closed the book and set it aside.

Harry took a deep breath. “Actually I’ve had three offers this summer, but I’ve decided I’m not taking any of them. I’m going to apply for Auror training.”

He stripped off his outer robes and dropped them in a heap onto the nearest chair.

“You’ll need an adjudicator for the Irvine Rating tests.” Snape watched him avidly. Harry’s hand went to his buttons and he dropped his trousers.

“I have you,” he said, kicking them away.

“Not in here,” Snape told him, standing. “I’m not a proper adjudicator in any sense of the word.”

“It’s fine,” Harry said, gently pushing Snape back down into his chair. “Who’s going to know?”

“Robigarde will want to know who administered your tests.” Snape sat without further protest.

“I read the book. It’s allowed for a Patron to administer even if you’re not an adjudicator.”

Harry stripped off his shirt and knelt on the carpet. He put a hand on each of Snape’s knees and edged between them, reaching for his buttons. Snape’s hand ghosted over his head. His eyes darkened as Harry massaged his cock through his pants. Harry grinned up at him.

“I am hardly qualified.” He tightened his hand in Harry’s hair.

Harry drew him out and stroked him briefly. The heady smell of arousal made his stomach tighten. The adrenaline of winning combined with the relief of sharing his secret and Snape’s easy acceptance of his overtures made for a dizzying blend of hormones.

“I don’t want anyone else,” he said.

Snape released his hair to press his hand into Harry’s jaw, forcing him to look up. “You ought to.”

“I want to do this with you,” Harry said. “I’m invoking the contract of our Patronage. It’s open-ended, remember?”

Snape shook his head. “Impertinent brat.”

Harry dropped his eyes and took Snape’s cock in. He made a noise of agreement around it and was gratified to hear Snape take in a quick breath. The slick, salty head glided across his palate and to the back of his throat, where he swallowed around it carefully.

“Merlin,” Snape swore softly, caressing his face.

Harry gripped Snape’s thigh with one hand and worked open his own briefs with the other. He had been solidly in favour of this position since Snape suggested it the first time—he liked how it felt to be at Snape’s mercy, on his knees, cradled between his thighs and with a firm hand guiding his mouth. There was something freeing about giving up control.

He brought himself off while Snape fucked his mouth with short, controlled strokes until he came with a grunt. He gripped Harry’s hair tight enough to hurt and his hot, bitter release hit the back of Harry’s throat. Harry tried to breathe through his nose, blinking away wetness at the corner of his eyes. At last Snape loosened his hold. Harry pulled away, gasping, and rested his head against the tense inner muscle of Snape’s thigh.

“Yeah,” he breathed, wiping his mouth. He sat back and tucked himself away before other more ill-advised words fell from his lips.

Snape straightened his robe. A flush was smeared across his aristocratic complexion. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be an insatiable youth.”

Harry laughed breathlessly into the fine wool of Snape’s robes. “Will you help me, then?”

“Yes, Potter, I’ll help. As best I’m able.” Snape petted his hair absently.

“Surely you can manage to call me ‘Harry’ after I’ve sucked you off,” Harry said.

Snape tugged his hair. “Up, brat. Go put on some proper clothes. I won’t evaluate you wearing some ridiculous Muggle getup.”

“Today?” Harry got to his feet.

“It’s a long process. We may as well start now.”

—

Harry eyed the bag that Snape had packed when he came back downstairs. “What’s that for?”

“The evaluation takes several days, during which we will have neither time nor energy to go back and forth between the manor and the moors. We’ll sleep out there.”

“Like camping.” Harry perked up.

He’d never been camping before—the Dursleys’ idea of camping had been to rent a massive caravan for the weekend and leave Harry with Mrs. Figg while they went off to the lake to get pink and chapped. He hadn’t seen the appeal, anyway, but maybe that was because the thought of spending a prolonged period in a caravan with the Dursleys sounded more like hell than a vacation.

He rather liked the idea of sleeping in Snape’s little tent out on the moor, though, the two of them alone amidst miles of heath and dell.

“It is most assuredly not like camping.” Snape shouldered the bag. He had traded in his high-collared professorial robes for a shorter set with split sides, fitted black trousers and black dragonhide boots. Harry tried not to stare. “It is a rigorous series of magical tests that are designed to push you to the limit, and the moors are not a safe place to begin with. We must be alert. Every magical being out here will see a pair of wizards as an irritation at best, and a snack at worst.”

“You go out on the moor at night. That’s where I found you,” Harry said.

“It’s all very well for me to foolishly endanger my own life, but the wizarding world would hang me out to dry if anything were to happen to you out here.” Snape scowled fiercely. All of his post-coital pliability was gone, but Harry rather liked him still. “Therefore you will pay attention and do as I say, for once in your life.”

“Why not do the tests in the orchard?” Harry asked as they set out on foot. He was secretly grateful that they weren’t Apparating—ever since Apparating all the way from London to the manor he’d felt ill at the very thought of it. He got around by Floo, mostly, which was awful, and the Underground, which was only marginally better.

“If you recall, the assessment must be unaffected by any other magic. Tests have historically been administered in a magically neutral area which could take months to prepare.” Snape strode ahead and Harry had to hurry to match his pace. “On the moor there’s no residual magic to interfere.”

Harry hadn’t been exactly clear on what a ‘magically neutral’ place might be, but leaving the manor and looking out at the green hills he had to admit that this seemed to fit the bill. It was wild country, never tamed for long before it returned to its roots. Wizards and wars both seemed small in the face of it.

There were paths all across the hills. Sometimes Snape followed them and sometimes he seemed to find his own way, following some inner compass. Harry’s boots were quickly soaked by the waterlogged peat and his limbs protested the day’s exertions—Quidditch, sex, and an impromptu hike—but the fresh, damp air was invigorating. The rain had cleared and now the sun drooped low in the sky, melancholic. Snape was a dark silhouette ahead of him.

When Snape paused to hand him a flask of water he took it and drank gratefully. The day was cooling, and Harry tied his cloak around his shoulders.

“Severus,” he said. Snape turned back from where he looked across the hill. “Would you come to Ron and Hermione’s wedding with me?”

Snape looked away and busied himself putting the water back in his bag. “I hardly think I will be welcome.”

“You’re my Patron,” Harry said. “We’re supposed to make public appearances. Apparently it’s good for your image or something.”

He straightened. “I’m your Patron, not your beau, Potter. I’m certainly not someone you should bring around to these types of affairs.”

He stalked off. Harry fell silent and tried to reign in his disappointment, his mood fading with the light of the day. What had he expected? Snape was still his usual miserly self at heart. He might be fantastic in bed and unexpectedly generous and possessed of the grace to occasionally laugh at Harry’s terrible jokes, but they weren’t friends, or even _lovers_ by any stretch of the word, no matter what Harry had insinuated to Ron.

He fell into step behind Snape once more and they kept walking, night coming on cold and heavy around them. The back of his neck tingled as if something was watching him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must apologize for all the odd/melodramatic chapter titles :)


	17. Out on the Moor

Severus tried to put Potter’s request out of his head. It unsettled him, how comfortable and closely entwined they were. It made him want to run away. He’d already discovered that doing so was useless and likely to beget dramatic gestures from Potter. Instead he resolved to ignore the boy’s overtures toward anything outside the bounds of their Patronage and hope they would pass.

The Irvine tests required immense concentration from both of them, which served as an excellent distraction. Potter had a natural aptitude for spellcasting. Furthermore he could cast a spell he had never seen or practiced before, something most witches and wizards struggled with. His wand work was by no means elegant and the spells lacked accuracy and control in many facets, the sort of control that a precision caster like Granger would excel at, but it was gratifying to see him display such ability. Severus could have taken the first page of his assessment, procured within the first hour of casting on the first morning, sent it to the head of the Auror office and gotten him a position as an Auror trainee instantly. Severus had no doubt that control wasn’t something Robards—or anyone else, for that matter—would worry about. He would grow into his power as all wizards did.

Severus had to admit a personal curiosity, though: how far could Potter go? The tests were notoriously difficult. Wizards of the past might practice for weeks before attempting them. He had plucked Potter out of an easy life where the only magical stimulation he’d had recently was a series of amateur duels and the natural exertion of riding a broom. He was eager to push him to his limits.

While Potter made light-shows with his wand and lifted stones twice his size without breaking a sweat Severus diligently pulled samples of his output and recorded each result in the ledger. He kept his wonder to himself. Potter would neither appreciate nor benefit from that sort of fannish attention.

Potter made it through the first day with hardly a complaint. He had been quiet the previous evening when they set up camp, perhaps because of Severus’s earlier words. Severus knew that it was cruel in a way to give him everything he sought but this one thing. Potter wanted true companionship—someone who would slot nicely into his other life. His real life. Severus would never be that person. It was pointless for either of them to pretend.

Although the awkwardness sat between them unacknowledged, that night Potter came to lie in the narrow cot next to him. He pressed his lithe body against Severus and fumbled at his pants. Severus was of half a mind to send him away—they both needed to sleep—but he kissed Severus and stroked him and Severus knew he couldn’t. He put an arm around Potter and pulled him close. Even in August the chill of the moor weighed on them and he relished the heat of Potter’s skin against his, exothermic where he was cool to the touch. Potter laved at his collar with his hot tongue and his fingers were brands on Severus’s hip. He was fire, and Severus was glad to be burned.

They moved together for a moment, then Potter withdrew. His eyes were wide and dark.

“Fuck me,” he said. “I’m ready.”

Severus growled low in his throat, a primal possessiveness washing over him.

“ _‘I’m ready_ ’ are not words of endorsement,” he snarled. Did Potter know what he was offering? “Do you want it? Crave it? Have you thought about it in intimate detail, the stretch and ache and the intensity of being fucked? I won’t take your first time unless you beg me for it.”

Shameful red crawled over Potter’s cheeks and the hard, determined line of his jaw. He pulled back fully and propped himself on one elbow. His hands curled into the sheets.

“Please,” he said. The words came out stiffly as though it were torture to say them. Severus wished he could know what kind of torture it was to hear them. “I want it with you. I trust you.”

‘ _I trust you.’_ What a thing to say to a man like him.

Not ‘ _I want it with you, specifically’_ but ‘ _I want it because I trust you.’_

But Severus ought to be old enough to understand that one was basically the other. That in the long term love didn't always leave one breathless with the uplift but rather more often trampled beneath its thoughtless boot. A man with a foolish heart should grasp what was in front of him and not deny himself out of some misguided sense of honour. He rolled over and dug through his bag for the oil. When he came up he saw Potter's crestfallen expression and realized he expected refusal.

"I'm not so cruel as to demand you beg and then deny you." Severus handed him the bottle. "Do it, if it's what you truly want.”

Potter took the vial with trembling fingers. He sat up with his knees splayed open, his prick lolling to one side with its pinkish, shiny head in mouthwatering contrast to the tanned expanse of his abdomen. He flicked the top off the vial and poured some of the slippery stuff onto the fingers of his right hand, then hesitated. Severus took pity on him and plucked the bottle from between his fingers and stoppered it.

Potter leaned back and his fingers disappeared between his legs. Severus inhaled sharply. The muscles of his stomach jumped when he finally penetrated himself; his eyes fell shut and he moved awkwardly. Severus could hardly bear to watch him without batting his hand away—the angle would be so inadequate, too shallow, not aimed right. But there was something erotic about watching, too.

At last he withdrew his hand and sighed. “It’s too difficult.”

“Lay back,” said Severus. “I’ll do it.”

He leaned over Potter and knocked his legs apart. His finger slid in easily and Potter hissed through his teeth.

“Fuck,” he said. “Another.”

“Greedy,” Severus said. He pressed a second finger in and curled them up and in, seeking. When he found what he was looking for Potter gasped.

“God, your hands.”

Potter’s hair was splayed across the pillow, his eyes tracking Severus, pinning him through the heart. He added a third finger and Potter’s chest rose quickly and fell as he accepted the intrusion.

Severus fucked him open with his fingers until he was breathless and reaching for himself, and then he pulled out and grabbed Potter’s wrist.

“Don’t touch yourself,” he ordered.

Potter whined. “Please, now—”

He held Potter’s wrist to the mattress with one hand and took himself in the other. Potter reached up and his fingers brushed Severus’s jaw. He pressed in slowly, so slowly, savouring it. Potter’s eyes were wide and shocked.

“Breathe,” he said, to himself and the boy both.

Potter’s hand landed in his hair with a painful grip. When at last he was fully sheathed they were both damp and trembling. The pulse under his fingers beat hard and fast.

He withdrew just as slowly and Potter made a choked-off noise.

“It’s so much,” he said, turning his head to the side.

Severus smoothed the hair back from his face as he fucked him with long, gentle strokes. There had been lovers before this—quick fucks in a hotel room, Muggles with whom he would never form a connection. Those were weak flames compared to the light of the sun.

He reached for Potter’s prick and Potter pulled him down roughly to be kissed, arching up against him as Severus stroked him gently in the same rhythm. He wasn’t going to last long—Potter was tight and responsive around him. Without warning, Potter tossed his head back and cried out, spilling himself between them. His fingers dug into Severus’s shoulder, leaving marks. Severus groaned and buried himself deeply, shuddering as he found his release.

After three days of gruelling spellcasting Potter was too tired to do anything but fall into bed and sleep. Severus left him by himself and took the second cot, determined that he should rest. As an adjudicator his role was far less strenuous, but even the atmosphere itself was exhausting. Potter’s magic was a storm on the sea, whipped up in frenzied energy around them. He looked like a man possessed by the end of the third day. His eyes were fever-bright and his skin was flushed. He slept restlessly.

On the fourth and last morning Severus caught Potter’s wrist as he rolled off the cot and stumbled toward the tent flap.

“Leave your wand here,” he said.

“But we’re doing Arcana today,” Potter said, bewildered. “It’s the most difficult section.”

There were four sections to the Irvine test: Translation, Perception, Transmutation, Arcana. The last section, Arcana, was a very old magic. Many found it hard to harness. In his lifetime Severus had met only a handful of wizards who had attempted Arcana and most of them did not speak of it—whether they had failed or had invoked something more sinister than they expected, he’d never known. It was where even strong wizards fell short.

“Arcana is meant to measure your intuitive magic,” he said, shrugging on his robes. “The wand is a channel, but it’s also a bottleneck. Your true potential lies in your ability to change the world around you without that instrument.”

Potter withdrew his wand from his sleeve and held it up to the light. “It feels unfaithful.”

But he didn’t say ‘ _I can’t_ ’. By now, Severus imagined, he had to be riding the wave of his magical high; he might feel like there was nothing he couldn’t do.

“You may have defeated the Dark Lord with a wand, but it was your innate magic that enabled you to do what he couldn’t—to come back from beyond the veil,” Severus said. “Most wizards treat the wand as an extra limb. It’s the last thing they put down at night and the first thing they pick up in the morning. If you want to master wandless magic you must stop thinking of it that way. Magic is intrinsic.”

“But I haven’t mastered wandless magic,” said Potter. “Won’t that hold me back?”

“Not if you’re ready to take a leap of faith.” Severus held out his hand.

Potter dropped his wand into it. “Okay. I trust you.”

Arcana began stumblingly and Severus wondered if his gambit might not pay off after all. Potter could be his own worst enemy, a condition he was intimately familiar with. Unfortunately he had little insight into how to overcome that. All he could do was watch and wait.

The first handful of spells died upon utterance, but as he watched Potter seemed to tap into something, gaining his feet slowly. When Severus finally felt that ground-shaking power envelop him he let out a breath of relief. He’d estimated correctly: without the mental barrier of a wand Potter didn’t—or couldn’t—hold back. He leaned into every spell as if it was his oft-invoked _Expelliarmus_.

There were spells to draw sand from a stone; conjure illusions of dreams; pull water out of the earth and turn it to ice, then sublimate it. Potter made the hill tremble and shift beneath them. He made fire spring up at his fingertips. He sent the wind to whisk a leaf off a tree leagues away. His magical residue turned the air thick and hot, and his face glowed with exhilaration.

Severus recorded it all and wished that Albus was still alive to see it. No doubt his own evaluation had been as spectacular. Potter could never reach this level of proficiency in an ordinary situation, but it was extraordinary situations where he shone always.

By the time Severus stopped to force Potter to eat eat he was nearly incandescent. It was difficult to look at him, so much did the magic radiate off him like sunlight. He touched Potter's wrist briefly to check his vitals. As he feared, Potter’s skin burned with fever.

"You’re suffering from spell exhaustion,” he told Potter. “The last spell could be dangerous.”

"I want to keep going." Potter shook him off.

"The fever may worsen,” he warned. “Even accomplished wizards can succumb to spell exhaustion. You might push yourself too far and end up with permanent damage.”

“I’m not worried.” Potter grinned, his teeth flashing white in the gloom of the overcast day. "I feel like I could do anything right now."

Severus frowned. “That's the magic talking.”

He drank from the flask they shared and offered it up. Potter took a deep drought.

“I read the book. I know what the risks are.”

“Indeed,” said Severus. He couldn’t argue that.

The last spell of Arcana was a long incantation in a forgotten language even Severus didn’t know. It had no name. It was meant to summon your darkest fear. It wasn’t like a Boggart, which would only show you a fascimile of your fear and could be dispelled with a word, but rather a true summons. Severus had considered—he’d be a fool not to—that it would somehow raise the dead. But the previous night as he lay in bed he’d come to the conclusion that the Dark Lord was not Potter’s worst nightmare. Not anymore, and indeed perhaps never. What the boy feared was something intangible, something Severus didn’t understand yet. Severus wanted to know it so much that it pained him; he knew why Potter didn’t want to stop. Understanding your own fear was understanding yourself.

Potter took a seat on the stone and opened the book. The incantation was complex and strange, easier to read aloud than to try to memorize. He sounded out the unfamiliar words and they rang out strongly, weighty magical artifacts on their own.

Evening fell over the countryside, bringing with it a misty drizzle. Severus's skin was tight with anticipation. He readied to Apparate them back to the manor at the barest hint of trouble beyond what Potter could handle. The air was becoming so heavy it was difficult to breathe, growing more dense as magic built up around them.

Clouds coalesced above and the rain grew sharp with purpose. Severus dared not cast a spell to shield them for fear of disrupting the Arcana, so they were soon soaked to the bone. Around them in the darkening gloom the shadows seemed to stretch and move like underwater reflections.

At last the words trailed away and Potter stopped reading. He shut the book.

“That’s it,” he said.

Below them in the valley the shadows had begun to diverge into ragged shapes. The rain stopped suddenly. Potter got to his feet.

“What’s happening?”

A chill passed through Severus. Something about the movement below was familiar. “I don’t know.”

The shadowy shapes slowly detached from the moor below. Severus raised his wand, wondering if he should cast _Lumos_ but dreading what he might see. They flowed uphill like a sinister tide. It was growing cold, so cold he could see his breath fanning out in front of him. Potter hissed through his teeth in understanding.

“Dementors,” he whispered.

In between one heartbeat and the next they were surrounded. Severus realized he should do something to ward them off but suddenly it seemed like too great an effort. Something brushed by him and he turned, but even his movements were slow.

The thing behind him reached out a pale rotting hand from the shadowy depths of its robes.

“Ssseverus Snape,” it rattled.

He froze. Behind him he was vaguely aware of Potter raising his voice. The shadow withdrew its arm. Its fetid breath washed over him in a wave as it drifted closer, but he couldn’t lift his wand to defend himself.

“ _Expecto Patronum_!” Potter cried. He grabbed Severus’s arm and yanked him back. The Patronus flowed forth in a weak fog. “Severus, are you okay?”

The Dementors jostled each other, repelled but eager to hunt.

The hand landed on Severus’s arm was a warm, living anchor and Severus was abruptly returned to his body. He turned and saw the fear in Potter’s eyes.

“I’m fine.” Scanning the hill quickly he saw the depth of the crisis they’d unwittingly brought on themselves. There were hundreds of the Dementors, a swarm the likes of which he’d never seen. Was it a manifestation of Arcana or had they been merely waiting for a chance to strike? It didn’t matter. “They must have been drawn by your magic.”

Potter cursed and raised his hand again as they closed in. “ _Expecto Patronum_! My wand—I need my wand.”

The spell conjured only a silvery trickle. Potter groped at Severus’s pockets in a panic and drew out his wand. Severus was useless, turned to stone as the Dementors circled and probed at his mind.

“Find a happy thought.” Potter shook him. “Don’t succumb to them!”

“It’s pointless. There are too many.” What happy thoughts did he have? They would find him a poor meal indeed.

The Dementors began to encroach on the circle of protection afforded by Potter’s incorporeal Patronus. They seemed to fill the sky, although it was difficult to distinguish them against the night. There were more than he had ever seen in one place. They were already feeding on him, and likely Potter, too.

“ _Expecto Patronum!_ ” Potter shouted for the third time, and this time the spell erupted from his wand and took shape.

The magnificent stag shook itself briefly and charged the Dementors, driving them back. They withdrew like a wave retreating into the ocean. The fog began to clear from his mind. Now, however, he could see just how badly they were trapped. He turned to Potter and gripped his elbow.

“I cannot Apparate us out of here,” he said urgently. “There are too many of them—they’ve drained my reserves.”

“I can barely conjure a Patronus,” Potter replied. “What do we do?”

But before he could answer there was a sound like the cracking of a whip, and then another, and a third.

Three figures stood before them in the silver mist. Their cloaks flared with the wind of the storm. In the glow of the stag Patronus he saw their familiar bone-white masks under black hoods. Potter stiffened.

“Dolohov. Carrow.” Severus raised his wand. They must have found the manor and tracked he and Potter here, hoping to catch them unawares.

“Severus, my least favourite spy,” Amycus Carrow hissed. “So sorry to interrupt your little show. And to find Potter here, too—what a delight! I must thank you for doing our work for us.”

“Fools!” Severus forced Potter behind him with his arm. “These are not your tame Dementors from Azkaban. They will kill you as readily as they will us.”

“He tells the truth,” said Alecto to her brother, turning her masked face up to the veil of Dementors. “We should have stayed away and let the Dementors have them first.”

“No matter! Capture him,” Dolohov ordered. “ _Incarcerous_!”

Ropes flew from his wand and exploded in a puff of dust as the spell fell short. Potter’s Patronus had circled around and was beginning to flag, the gleaming flanks losing their supernatural lustre.

“I can’t keep it up,” Potter said in his ear. “They’re getting closer.”

The three Death Eaters closed the distance and Dementors converged in their wake.

Severus aimed at Amycus Carrow. “ _Confringo_!”

The spell missed his body and hit the white mask instead, splitting it in two. The halves fell away to reveal Carrow’s disfigured face. The skin puckered and drooped in some places, livid scars like starbursts across his cheek. His left eye was white and blind. He covered his face with one hand and pointed his wand at Severus with his other.

No, not at Severus. At Potter.

The curse shot forth too fast for him to block. Potter cried out from behind him. There was a terrible sizzling sound and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Severus’s stomach turned and he looked back to see Potter on the ground, clutching his am.

“Leave us be, Carrow,” Severus snarled. “The war is over. You will gain no reward for capturing us.”

“Your death would be reward enough, filthy Mudblood traitor.” Amycus reached him in a handful of strides. Severus stumbled back, but Amycus was fast; he grabbed him by the collar with his meaty hands and jabbed his wand into Severus’s jugular. “Avada Kedavra will not fail at this range. The Dark Lord was remiss not to kill you sooner.”

“No!” Potter shouted.

"You don’t have the courage," Severus said coldly. "You were always a coward.”

At that moment Potter's Patronus finally gave up and dissipated with a faint sigh. In a blink the Dementors had formed a solid wall of black around them. Amycus's grip on Severus loosened and his gaze turned to the mass of grim spectres opening and closing their lipless mouths as they sipped at the air. He seemed to realize for the first time how many of them there were. His jaw went slack and his good eye glazed over. His hands fell away and Severus tore himself out of his grip.

"I'll do it myself," Dolohov said, raising his wand.

"Severus!" Potter cried in a useless warning.

" _Avada Kedavra_ —!"

There was a flash. Severus closed his eyes and braced himself—but instead of death, he felt the familiar squeeze of his atoms that meant Apparition. Then he was spat out.

Severus opened his eyes. They were still atop the hill. The mass of Dementors was behind them now. He could glimpse the three Death Eaters within.

"Get them!" Dolohov roared distantly.

Potter grabbed his wrist.

"Damn it," he cursed. “It didn’t work. _Apparate_!"

That sickening feeling came again. The world blurred and reformed—the same but with a dizzyingly different perspective. Potter had Apparated them to the other side of the hill. The Dementors circled lazily nearby, waiting for Potter to give up.

Severus turned to the boy and grabbed his jaw roughly, forcing Potter to meet his eyes.

"Go," he said. "You have to go. It takes too much magic to Apparate two. Get help."

"I won't leave.” Potter's hand on his wrist was painfully tight. His eyes were bright and green as death itself. Ironic that Severus would never meet his death now—a Dementor's Kiss was forever.

"Foolish boy!" Severus snapped. "Get help, or we will be trapped here.”

Potter grimaced in anguish. Blessedly he didn’t cry. “I’ll come back for you.”

“Go before it’s too late!”

Potter raised his wand, his eyes fixed on Severus.

With a crack, he was gone.

The storm of Dementors parted and a silver owl Patronus swooped through, leading Alecto Carrow down the hill. Severus could only watch, slumped against a boulder. A terrible chill had come over him. He might never be warm again.

Alecto grabbed his arm and hauled him up. “They got Amycus. You trapped us!”

“Idiot,” Severus rasped. “Why would I trap myself along with you?”

Amycus had no reply for that. She’d never been the brightest; still, Severus had a spark of sympathy left in him for the fate she would suffer alongside him. It wasn’t something he would wish on many people.

Amycus fumbled with her wand and cast a spell to tie Severus’s wrists together. He might have told her not to bother—he could hardly stand, let alone fight back. The spell rope frayed and fell apart almost as soon as it wrapped around his wrists. She cursed.

“Come with me.” She jerked Severus’s arm, seeming to deem him no threat after all.

Severus stumbled after her. The sky was a terrible unyielding black. Dementors swarmed around them, lit from below by Amycus’s circling Patronus. The owl shrank smaller and smaller as it flew ahead.

Severus could draw his wand and curse Amycus while her back was turned. What did it matter, though? He wouldn’t escape the ever-tightening circle of wild Dementors.

A moment later the owl was snuffed out like a candle-light. Amycus raised her wand to cast another and it failed. Again and again she aimed her wand at the sky. The Dementors grew bold, coming ever nearer. Bony hands gripped Severus’s arms and brushed his face, leaving icy trails on his skin. He heard Amycus crying out as if from very far away. The rattling breath filled his ears and he mercifully lost consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting patiently for this one; it's been a heck of a month. Hope you're all staying safe <3


	18. The Maze

The three Death Eaters had been to the manor already. The Dark Mark hung low in the sky over the sprawling estate, a terrible omen of the past. Panic suffused Harry. If they’d tampered with the Floo he would be trapped, unable to Apparate because of his worsening spell-fever and the Dementors’ effect. Already the sizzle of magic in his veins turned to lead.

“Mitty!” he called, entering through the blown-open front door. “Are you there?”

“Master Harry!” Mitty appeared in the entrance hall with a crack. She sobbed and clutched at him. “Master Harry, they is coming and destroying the manor! Mitty is not stopping them… the big one burns all the ancestral portraits, and they tears down the tapestries and shoots spells at the walls…”

She wailed and buried her head in Harry’s leg.

“The Floo,” he said urgently. “Does it still work? Severus is in danger. I have to get back to London immediately.”

“Yes, yes, the Floo—” she nodded tearfully. With another crack, they were in the living room. Harry stumbled and tried not to throw up as his stomach rebelled violently against this sudden displacement. When this was over he was never going to Apparate again.

Thinking about the future made a terrible lump well up in his throat. He grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the bowl and threw it on the fire.

“The Ministry of Magic!” he cried, stepping into the green flame.

Head Auror Robards sent three Aurors with a Portkey to Banbridge. He nearly forbid Harry from going, but Harry’s angry shouting put him off that idea. In retrospect, Harry realized that yelling at the man he hoped would give him a job wasn’t the brightest idea. At the time he cared for nothing except getting Snape back whole and alive.

They stepped onto the moor to a terrible scene. Hundreds of Dementors gathered upon the hill, a number too great to count. Neither friend nor foe could be seen amidst their masses. Cold dread overtook Harry. What if they were too late?

The three Aurors cast a Patronal shield and marched into the fray. He followed closely, still too drained to cast his own Patronus. There was a heart-stopping moment when they passed over the knoll and Harry couldn’t see Snape anywhere—had the Carrows taken him?

Then he spotted a crumpled figure further down the hill. “There!”

“He’s been Kissed.” The Senior Auror knelt beside Severus and took his pulse. His eyes were closed and his skin tinged with an unnatural pallor.

Harry bent and touched his brow. It was cold as ice. His legs shook as he straightened.

“We’ll take him back,” said another Auror. “Let’s get out of here.”

“There were others,” said Harry. “Three Death Eaters. Alecto and Amycus Carrow and Antonin Dolohov.”

“We’ve been tracking the Carrows for months now,” said the third Auror.

“If they’re here then there’s no hope for them,” the Senior Auror said firmly. “This is worse a fate than any prison sentence. Let’s go. There’s still a chance for this one. Come on, young Potter.”

He put a hand on Harry’s shoulder as the other two lifted Severus between them. He held out the return Portkey and they were whisked away, the deadly swarm blurring into the night and wheeling away like an awful mirage.

The younger Auror and a medi-wizard took Snape to St. Mungo’s. Maddeningly, Harry was separated from him by Robards.

“I need you to make a statement,” he said, holding Harry’s arm in a firm grip as he dragged him away. This time he was implacable. “There’s nothing you can do for him. He’s in the best medical ward in the country.”

Harry sat down heavily inside Robards’ office. “I shouldn’t have left him alone.”

“You did the right thing.” Robards shut the door to his office and sat down across from Harry. “Now, tell me what happened.”

“It was my fault,” Harry said miserably. “I summoned them.”

The whole sordid tale came out to Robards. He listened with an unreadable expression as Harry described their training and his eventual decision to complete the Irvine test, their journey into the moor and the subsequent four days. Occasionally Robards held up a hand to stop him and wrote something down on the parchment in front of him.

At last Harry ran out of words. He was exhausted and drained and every time he thought of Snape he felt sick again.

“Can I go now?” he asked.

Robards frowned. “Where is the record of your test results?”

“Severus has them.” Harry stood, impatient to be going.

He nodded and stood with Harry. “Very well. You’re free to go. I will send Aurors up to Banbridge again when the infestation has retreated and perhaps we can recover the tent. I suspect we’ll find Dolohov and his partners there as well.”

_Stuff them_ , Harry wanted to say, but he held his temper. “Thank you,” he said instead.

Robards clapped him on the arm. “It’s clear you care a great deal for Snape. I can’t say I understand it, but I wish him the best.”

Harry nodded. He escaped Robards’ office gratefully and headed toward the Ministry Floo. The path to St. Mungo’s was unfortunately familiar to him. He was reminded abruptly of visiting those injured during the war while Snape had been here on a different floor, recovering.

Harry had never gathered the courage to visit him then, and he felt like a fraud now.

When he arrived they were still running diagnostic spells on Snape. Harry stood outside the room to wait. That was where Ron and Hermione found him: shored up by the wall, barely awake. He’d been drifting in and out of consciousness, beset by exhaustion, only to be snapped back by shadows moving just outside his field of vision. He didn’t recognize the two sets of footsteps and for a moment he was fearful that the Dementors had found him. But there was a decidedly human gasp and he found himself with an armful of Hermione.

“Oh, Harry! We heard something happened at the manor!”

He staggered. “‘Mione? How did you—?”

“Auror Robards sent someone to get us,” said Ron. He looked grim. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Harry pushed Hermione off. “It’s not me, it’s Severus. We were attacked by Dementors, and then Dolohov showed up. I couldn’t Apparate us both out… I had to leave him.”

He trailed off, the words caught behind the lump in his throat. Hermione wrapped her arm around him.

“Oh, no.”

“Was he Kissed?” Ron asked quietly.

“Yeah.” Harry buried his face in his hands. “They seem to think they can do something for him, though. They won’t let me in to see him.”

“Sit down, Harry, you look like you’re going to fall over.” Hermione nudged him toward the visitor’s bench outside the room.

Harry sat and they bracketed him, jostling him with their warmth and their love. They were so alive, solid presences murmuring to each other over him. How could they act so normal when Snape was in that room, maybe worse than dead? A Dementor’s Kiss meant he could never cross over. His physical body would live on without him until his heart stopped beating, but it would be empty.

Hermione handed him a handkerchief. “It’ll be okay,” she murmured, her hand on his shoulder. He hid his face in it.

After a while he slept. Although he was exhausted his sleep was restless and interrupted by nightmares. He woke frequently to Hermione’s scratchy cloak under his cheek, shivering from a chill that wouldn’t leave him.

Finally he was roused by a murmur of voices. Hermione leaned over to say lowly, “Harry, you can go in now.”

He sat up. A medi-witch stood next them but he couldn’t read anything from her face.

“You may see him, Mr. Potter,” she said.

“Is he awake?” Harry stood on shaky legs.

Her expression turned somber. “No. I will be honest, his prognosis doesn’t look good. He’s largely unresponsive.”

“But not fully unresponsive?” Harry pressed.

The medi-witch shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter. I can’t say more until we’ve run long-term tests.”

He followed her into the room with Ron and Hermione closely behind. Snape was laid out on the bed looking like a spectre. His eyes were shut as though asleep. His chest rose and fell shallowly. When Harry took his hand, he didn’t move.

Harry tried to probe his mind, but either he was too inept or there was nothing to probe. It was hard to tell.

The medi-witch left and shut the door behind her. Harry hardly noticed.

He stayed for a long time before the hospital staff finally kicked him out.

“There are still things we can do for Mr. Snape, but we can’t do them with you hovering about,” said the medi-wizard who took over the shift.

“You’ll tell me if there’s a change in his condition,” Harry prompted.

“We would typically contact the next of kin,” he hedged. “But Mr. Snape has no listed next of kin according to Headmaster McGonagall.”

“He’s my Patron,” Harry said firmly. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Well…” the medi-wizard hesitated.

“The contract gives me a vested interest.” He folded his arms. “It’s legally binding. I have the right to know.”

The medi-wizard sighed. “Very well. We’ll contact you, Mr. Potter. Now, please—you can come back to visit in a day.”

Harry wanted nothing less than to go home and wait for the hospital to contact him, but when he emerged and saw Hermione waiting on the bench a wave of drowsiness washed over him. He was tapped out, likely still suffering from spell fever, and there was nothing more he could do for now. He waved at her and she came forward to take his arm.

“We’ll stay with you at the apartment,” she said.

“Thanks,” Harry said gratefully.

“As long as you tell us exactly what happened,” Hermione went on.

They were silent throughout his explanation. When he was done they exchanged an unreadable look.

“You summoned a horde of wild Dementors,” Hermione summed.

“You completed _Arcana_ ,” Ron said incredulously. “Mate, the Irvine test is basically illegal. You can _die_ of spell fatigue. Not just in the aftermath, but days later.”

“I obviously didn’t know that,” Harry snapped. He rubbed his forehead. “Sorry. I just… if I hadn’t asked, Snape wouldn’t have brought me out to the moors. If I hadn’t insisted on finishing Arcana he’d be safe.”

“Snape is capable of making his own decisions,” Ron pointed out. “He shouldn’t have even let you start in the first place. You could’ve asked to take your NEWT’s. Other people have done it after the age cutoff.”

Hermione nodded. “Ron’s right. Professor Snape should’ve been looking out for you. He’s your Patron and he should know better.”

“It’s not his fault!” he protested. “I’m the one who wanted it. Arcana is meant to conjure your greatest fear, and I’m afraid of losing people I care about. But I didn’t believe it was _real_.“

He broke off. The lump in his throat had come back, choking out his words. How could he explain it? He’d felt safe enough to do stupid things. The estate had seemed like a whole world away from reality and consequences.

He’d been drawn to Snape like _he_ was a Dementor, feeding off his gratitude, his approval, his generosity. His reverent touch, the fire in his gaze when he looked at Harry—things Harry never thought he was destined to have but couldn’t help wanting.

“Harry,” Hermione said carefully, leaning forward to put her hand over his. “I’m sorry. I know you care about him. Whatever you need, we’ll be here.”

Harry nodded, unable to answer.

That night he dreamt he had stayed. He shielded Snape from the Dementors with his body and they fed off his magic, drawing it out of him in bright silver threads again and again as Snape shouted his name with fear in his eyes.

He woke resolute the next morning.

“I need your help to get him out of St. Mungo’s,” he said to Hermione.

She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“I know he’s still in there somewhere—they said he responded to some of the tests. I think he’s trapped inside his Occlumental shield.” He took a deep breath. “I need time to re-establish the bond and get into his mind, but it can’t be while he’s in the hospital. Nobody else can know about the bond, especially now.”

Hermione shook her head and pushed something toward him wordlessly. It was the Daily Prophet. Scrawled large across the front was the headline ‘ _Harry Potter Takes Ex-Death Eater as Patron: Reconciliation or Revenge?’_ The image showed Severus Snape in the hospital bed, but it was an old picture—one taken when Snape was recovering from Nagini’s poison.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “Look outside.”

The mail bin was overflowing with letters. They were littered across the ground outside, too, and owls perched on the bin with more letters in their beaks. Many of them were angry red Howlers. The owls glared balefully at Harry when he opened the window. Almost immediately a head popped up from behind the dumpster.

“Mr. Potter!” A flash went off in his face. “What do you have to say about accusations that you’re responsible for the hospitalization of ex-Death Eater and Order of Merlin recipient Severus Snape? Is it true that he’s your Patron?”

“ _Conflagrante_ ,” Harry growled, setting the contents of the bin on fire. The reporter yelped and leapt sideways as flames shot up next to him. He slammed the window. “How the hell did they find me?”

“Plenty of people know where you live,” Hermione said. “It’s not much of a secret.”

“Yeah, they mostly left us alone because you and I are boring nowadays,” Ron said. He stood in the doorway rubbing his eyes. “I caught one of them trying to get in through the window this morning. Hermione hexed him with boils.”

Hermione went pink. “It’s a reckless invasion of privacy. The point is, Harry, we can’t bring him here. This place is too hard to ward—and with all the Muggles nearby there’s the Statute of Secrecy to think about.”

“I don’t care about the press,” Harry said resolutely, which was a flagrant lie, because he still hated seeing his name on the front page. He doubted Snape would appreciate it, either. But Snape might never wake up to have an opinion otherwise.

Hermione looked doubtful. “It’s dangerous. Dolohov and the Carrows may not be a threat any longer, but there are others.”

“Then stay until he’s recovered. I trust you to keep us safe more than I trust the Aurors,” he said. “Your wards are impeccable.”

She frowned at the table. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should be helping,” Ron said. He began making a second pot of coffee. The familiar sounds were comforting. “Yeah, it's dangerous, but so is everything Harry does and we always stand behind him. Mate, if this thing you have for Snape is real..." He shrugged. "Maybe I don't understand it, but that doesn't mean it's not important. I mean, if this happened to Hermione I'd do the same in a heartbeat and I know you'd have my back."

Hermione shook her head. "Okay, touching but sexist. You know that I wouldn't be the one in a coma in this situation."

"Well, what would you do?" Ron asked, slathering jam on his toast.

"I'd leave it to the trained medical professionals," she said.

"What if you just knew you could do something about it? Something that the Healers couldn't?" Harry pressed.

She sighed. "I'd break Ron out of the hospital and take him to the Burrow. Fine, I'll help. You'll need me, anyway."

The Aurors clearly felt the greatest threat to Snape had passed with the Death Eaters taken out of commission. A single Auror had been posted on guard outside Snape’s room, and a brief bit of reconnaissance under the invisibility cloak informed Harry that the morning guard left his position to get a bag of crisps from the Muggle shop down the street every day at ten on the dot. The greatest difficulty would be the monitoring spells which were meant to alert the medi-witches to any change in Snape’s condition. Hermione assured him that she could disable them, but she needed some time.

That left Ron to make some mischief down on the second floor in Minor Spell Damage in order to draw the Auror away when he returned from his break.

“Don’t get caught,” Hermione told Ron sternly, brushing Floo powder off his fake beard.

He winked. “I learned from the best, don’t worry.”

They parted ways on the second floor and Harry and Hermione got into the elevator. He tapped his fingers nervously against the glass until she shot him a quelling look.

“Just don’t set off the alarms when you cast the notice-me-not,” she said.

“Finesse, I know.” Harry pushed himself away from the wall as the elevator came to a halt. They strode down the corridor with purpose, a practice Harry had perfected after years of rule-breaking. They’d procured proper visitor’s badges so it looked like they were there legitimately; nobody stopped them.

Inside the room Hermione sat by the bed immediately and Harry cast the notice-me-not spell on the door. It was subtle enough to turn away anyone who had a notion to look in on Snape—not powerful enough to deter a medi-witch with purpose, but all Harry had to do was monitor it and make sure he alerted Hermione in time if anyone was coming. A seasoned healer would notice right away that the monitoring spells had been tampered with.

After a tense half hour Hermione finally stood up and put her wand away. “It’s done. They’ll eventually realize the connections have been severed, if they don’t notice that he’s missing first, but it’ll buy us enough time to get out.”

Harry shook out the Invisibility Cloak and draped it over Snape’s slack form. “ _Levicorpus_ ,” he intoned. He put a hand on the invisible form.

Hermione took out her coin and tapped it with her wand. “There. Ron’s meant to meet us back at the apartment so it doesn’t look suspicious, all three of us being here.”

“Will you side-along Apparate with Snape?” Harry was reluctant to let Snape out of his sight but he didn’t think he could handle Apparition. “I’ll take the Floo.”

Hermione nodded. “Good thinking. It’ll be less obvious if all three of us leave from different points.”

She cast her own levitating spell and hurried down the hall toward the front exit. Harry headed to the hospital Floo.

They laid Snape on the sofa in the tiny living room. Harry enlarged it so that his bare feet wouldn’t hang off the end and draped one of Molly’s hand-stitched quilts over him. In the warmth of the late afternoon sun Snape was unsettlingly pale.

Finally Harry pulled the ottoman over and sat down next to the sofa.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Hermione asked him. She hovered in the doorway of the kitchen.

“I have an idea,” he said.

"It's incredibly dangerous to perform Legilimency on someone who's been Kissed. People have tried before and ended up in a bad state."

“He’s not gone,” Harry said.

He leaned forward and brushed a lock of dark hair off Severus’s face. St. Mungo’s had taken his robes and put him in a pale green hospital gown. The livid red scar from Nagini’s bite stood out against his neck. Harry traced it from the hollow beneath his jaw to his jugular. It was a scar made by magic, like Harry’s. It would never fade. A Dementor’s Kiss left no such mark, unkind as it was.

He knew it would be easy to re-establish the bond. Snape’s magic called to him constantly since they broke the bond. It was still calling now. And Snape might hate Harry for it afterward, or berate him, or throw abuse at him, but Harry could live with that. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t try.

He put his hand over Snape’s and shut his eyes. Distantly he heard Hermione leave.

At first it was like weaving together the ends of a frayed piece of twine. Harry worked carefully, following his intuition. Slowly he became aware of the metaphysical world materializing around him. Sparks burst where the strands of black and silver touched, lighting the darkness briefly. A wind stirred the hairs on his arms. The threads were lashed together now, becoming something greater than the sum of their parts. Harry fed more of his magic into it and the bond fell into place, pulled tight as gut-string between them.

Harry opened his eyes and found himself in a wide, green field. In the distance to one side was Hogwarts. To the other, the implacable wall of the maze rose high above him. The skies roiled with uneasy weather, clouds the colour of a bruise threaded with lightning, but no thunder sounded in this imagined world.

Harry walked toward the maze. Something about it was different; the stones seemed blacker, the wall higher. He saw no entrance anywhere, but as he neared it the wall shifted and parted into an arch like a grim parody of the gateway into Diagon Alley. Harry stepped through.

Inside the maze was dark and still. A faint, gloomy light came from the archway behind him, but the rest of the maze was unlit.

Harry pulled out his wand and whispered, “ _Lumos_.”

He looked back at the arch. “Well, this is it,” he said to himself, and plunged into the darkness.

Time passed without measure in the maze. He walked slowly at first and searched for distinguishing features, but there were none. He tried marking the walls with his wand but the marks faded instantly. He conjured a ball of string, but when he laid it on the ground it dissipated. It was clear there would be no tricks here. So he walked, never tiring, never feeling hunger or thirst. Sometimes he ran just to hear his footsteps come back at him. He tried breaking the wall, but it was impenetrable. He sent flares into the black night that hemmed him in and they disappeared.

He tried to conjure a broom to fly above the maze, and when he held it he knew implicitly that it had no power here and he couldn’t fly it. He tossed it to the ground with a clatter and it faded away. He wasn’t just in the metaphysical plane now; he was inside Snape’s very mind. The rules of _his_ world no longer applied.

Soon Harry began to feel as though someone were following him. The back of his neck prickled. But he could neither hear nor see anything in the maze beyond the circle of light from his wand, and when he turned there was nobody. He sent a ball of light to illuminate the long corridors ahead and behind, but they were empty.

He kept walking. Perhaps the spectre would show itself, or perhaps Harry would walk through the maze forever. He became numb to the possibility of either. In fact, although there was a strange niggling in the back of his mind, he couldn’t quite remember what was so important about the maze. It seemed as though he had always been here in this comforting darkness.

Harry and his invisible companion might have gone on this way for an age—days? Months? He couldn’t have said—except that eventually Harry came to a crack in the wall.

Curious, he peered through.

On the other side there was a forest. It was a wood at the edge of a town, barely a forest except in name. He knew all these things instantly. In a clearing in this forest there sat a little boy, skinny, with dark hair and dark eyes. He was playing alone with a doll made out of straw and scraps of cloth. He would point at something on the forest floor and the doll would stand and walk to that spot.

After a moment the boy looked up to see a young girl enter the clearing. She was grinning, holding a basket. She wore a blue dress and her red hair was drawn into two pigtails. Upon seeing the boy she dashed over to greet him. The boy smiled cautiously.

Harry pulled away. Something about the scene made him feel strange. Susurrations came to his ears, indistinct whispers that pulled at him and urged him onward. He turned back to the wall but found the crack was gone.

He shook his head as if to clear away cobwebs.

Not very long after that, Harry came to another crack in the wall.

This time he looked eagerly. The scene was different. It was a young boy alone in a room, sitting on a bed. The room looked cold and uninviting, the bed rickety and the mattress thin. The boy was reciting something out of a book aloud, holding a stick in his hand.

As Harry watched, the door flew open. A tall, dark-haired man strode in and ripped the stick from the boy’s grasp. He broke it over his knee and tossed the pieces into the corner of the room. Vile words poured from his lips. The boy stood up and shouted back, and the man hit him across the face.

“No,” a voice came from behind Harry, and he stepped away, startled.

Then the crack was gone.

He hurried on. The whispers became louder, pressing down on him with their indistinguishable words. He sensed that something was driving them. When he came to a third crack he pressed his eye to it without hesitation.

The boy was older now. He sat in a classroom. He wore robes, grimy and too short around his wrists, and his hair was longer and lanky. He was alone, and then the door opened and other young people poured in. The boy didn’t look about.

A girl sat next to him—the same red-haired girl from before. She smiled at him and he smiled back, tentatively. She said something bright and he leaned in. Then someone was grabbing her wrist, pulling her away, and laughingly, she went. She waved at the boy. He looked back at his book.

“Stay away,” the voice whispered. Harry looked about.

There were more of them. The boy alone. The boy with others. The red-haired girl; a tall, aristocratic boy with a sneer; a boy who looked like Harry who was careless and sharp-tongued. Harry watched them all. The voices grew stronger, like winds buffeting him.

Then, no longer a boy, the man standing in a circle with other men. Someone writhed in the centre of the circle. He held a wand and a thread of red light connected the wand to the suffering man. He was strong, now; he was part of the world, no longer a scared, weak boy.

Further on, Harry saw the man kill someone for the first time. He saw fear, uncertainty; saw the man walk up to a house and a flash of green inside. Something strange twisted in his heart. He pressed his palms to the wall and watched without breathing.

The man entered the house. A red-haired woman lay in a room, splayed across the floor. Her eyes were open and empty.

Everything began to blur together. Harry ran. Memories came unbidden to him, pouring out of the cracks in the maze. He heard the spectre behind him and felt its cold breath. He thought that if he turned he would see it, huge and towering, but he was afraid. The memories spun and spun, betrayal, hope, despair, misery, running together like colours in the rain. He ran and ran until at last they coalesced around him.

He was on a hill. It was night—no, perhaps not, but it was difficult to tell. Dark shapes crowded the sky and were all around him. The air was cold and sharp on his tongue. A black-haired woman dragged a man away from the shadows that hung suspended in the air, but the man was weak and tired. He was, after all, the boy on the bed. He had always been weak and tired.

The woman had conjured a silver owl to guide them but her spell was faltering. It wasn’t long before it went out. Harry followed behind, watching. The woman became surrounded by shadows. She cried out and then was silent. The man collapsed to the ground. A shadow detached itself from the rest and drifted toward him, curious. It opened its foul mouth and the man’s magical essence, his soul, began to lift away from his body.

“No!” Harry said suddenly, stepping forward.

The shadow and the man both did not see him. On and on the shadow pulled at the man’s soul, stretching it, teasing it out, and swallowing it. Harry rushed toward them but he could do nothing. Both were only memories, and he could not touch them.

“Stop,” he pleaded, grasping pointlessly at the air.

“Harry Potter.” Someone called his name. The voice rattled around him, echoing off the unseen walls.

Harry turned, a chill falling over him, and saw a shadow approaching. It reached out with pale hands like a corpse’s. Its face was hidden under the hood of its dark cloak. It grabbed his arm in a death-like grip and drew him toward it in a mockery of intimacy. He saw its terrible maw open, and he drew his wand.

“ _Expecto Patronum!”_ he shouted.

Silver erupted from his wand and the spectre reared back. Its terrible face was flayed away as his magic burrowed into its body, filling it with light. The Patronus grew and grew, until the memory itself shattered into fragments and Harry was back in the maze. But Harry didn’t lower his wand. The Patronus whirled around him without form, tearing at the stone and exploding outward like a hurricane.

The walls of the maze buckled and fell. The blackness of it tore open to expose the sky above, and Harry pointed his wand at the centre of the storm. The Patronus shot upward and the sky lightened to grey, to silver, and finally to white, until everything was white and he was falling as the bottom of the world dropped out from under him.


	19. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woww it's done, sorry for making you all wait five million years for the last two chapters!! I also haven't been keeping my fic doc in order so I messed up the number of chapters OTL;;
> 
> Please enjoy, and thanks for reading til the end!

Severus woke slowly. Everything ached and he was cold to the bone in spite of the blanket over him. He tried to sit up, but a sharp spike of pain to the head laid him flat again.

He took his bearing from his horizontal position. He was in an unfamiliar place—not St Mungo’s or any other place of healing, that was for sure. The room was small and cozy, sporting a low table on a threadbare rug, a strange glassed-in fireplace on one end, and a bookshelf full of Quidditch books and fiction. There was a window across the room and an armchair in front of it. In the armchair was sprawled a tall, gangly redhead. He was snoring, a book draped over his chest.

“Am I dead?” Severus wondered aloud. It came out in a croak.

Weasley jolted out of his sleep and leapt to his feet. “Snape!”

Severus let his head drop back to the pillow. Not dead, then. “I see your observational skills haven’t improved, Mr. Weasley.”

“Harry!” Weasley hollered. “He’s awake!”

There was a peculiar twinge in his heart, echoed in his mind, and Severus realized he knew exactly where Potter was and what he was doing: in the kitchen, making tea. And his emotional state: moping. A burst of relief briefly eclipsed his thoughts. Potter was alive and whole, though obviously not cured of his fool-hearted need to save Severus from the demons of his past life.

Shock sizzled through the bond and Potter dropped his tea mug with a clatter that echoed down the hall. A moment later he appeared in the doorway, disheveled, dressed in Muggle pyjamas and wearing a look of exhaustion. His eyes fell on Severus and his face lit up.

“You’re awake,” he breathed.

“It appears so,” Severus said. He pushed himself upright with great effort, ignoring the resultant headache. He was ever so tired of being in mortal peril. “I suspect I have you to thank for it.”

“And me,” Weasley interjected with a grin.

“Yeah, definitely,” Potter agreed, his eyes never leaving Severus. “And Hermione, too.”

Weasley fidgeted in Severus’s periphery. “I’ll just leave you two alone.”

“Thanks, Ron.”

Weasley left the book on the chair and made his escape. Severus found that he could hardly bring himself to care one way or the other. Potter took a step forward, and another.

“How did you do it?” Severus asked. He remembered enough of the moor and the Dementors that he knew Potter would not have come back in time. By all rights he ought to be a soulless husk.

“When we came back for you everyone was convinced you’d been Kissed, but I wasn’t so sure,” Potter said. “You once told me that there were other ways of fighting a Dementor than with a Patronus charm. I was certain you were still alive, trapped inside your own mind. So I did the only thing I could.”

Severus drew a deep breath to steady himself. “Naturally the most foolhardy thing you could have done.”

“I had to,” Potter said. He lifted his chin in defiance. “And it worked. You were in there.”

“And the maze?” Severus asked.

He knew the answer already, of course. It was gone. He was split open to the core, exposed in a way he hadn’t been in nearly thirty years. Every emotion that pulsed through the bond was the point of a knife driving into his flesh.

“It was destroyed.” Potter sat beside the sofa. “There was a shadow, like a Dementor. I had to break open the maze to release it. Or destroy it, I don’t know which. After that Hermione said you should heal naturally, if you were really in there.” He paused. “We didn’t know if you would wake up.”

“The Dementor seed,” Severus said. “Occlumency must have preserved my soul inside the maze, but the seed corrupted the construct. I would have succumbed before long.”

“You would have become one of them,” Potter said. The look in his eyes was awful. Severus had to stop himself from reaching out—it was too soon, they were tied too tightly.

“Yes. It happens many years after the Kiss. That’s why there were so many on the moor—they would have beset travellers, fed on them and turned them.”

A cacophony of emotions came through the bond—revulsion, fear. Severus didn’t bother to tell him what would have happened if he had failed to liberate Severus from his mind-maze: they would have both been trapped, and the Dementor seed would have followed the bond back to Potter’s empty mind. A fate worse than death. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Potter stood at arm’s length.

After all, neither of them could be certain that it was truly gone.

“I’m going to get some tea and chocolate biscuits,” Potter said at last. “And since term has started we had to let some people know where you were. You have well-wishers, if you want to see them.”

Severus looked down at his dressing gown. “And some clothes, if you please.”

The well-wishers Potter spoke of were Minerva and Draco, neither of whom he was particularly eager to see. Both were angry at him for their own reasons. Draco, at least, was easier to appease—a reassurance that he wasn’t being replaced, a mutual acknowledgement that Potter was afflicted with madness. He suspected that Draco knew about the two of them. He’d have to be an idiot not to figure it out with the way Potter hovered around. But he was tactful in that particular Pureblood way so he said nothing, only raised his eyebrow a bit at one point when Potter swooped in and took Severus’s tea away.

Minerva, on the other hand, did not dance around it.

“I hear you’ve been exceedingly foolish.” She swept into the sitting room, looking out of place in Potter’s half-Muggle flat with her tartan robes. “Have you gone out of your mind? The _Irvine test_? We live in the twenty-first century, Severus.”

“Minerva.” He set aside the Potions magazine he’d been trying to catch up on. Potter was in the kitchen pretending to be occupied with lunch, but Severus could tell he was eavesdropping.

 _Stop that_ , he thought at Potter. Defiance came at him in return.

“Surely you have something to say for yourself.” She sat across from him and conjured a tea-set—one of her own, from her personal chambers at Hogwarts. She poured a cup for herself.

“I will not defend myself for having done nothing wrong,” he said.

“Hmph.” She poured a second cup for him and pushed it over roughly.

There was no point in arguing with her. He couldn’t have denied Potter the opportunity to know himself by whatever means. Every wizard had the right to choose his path.

They sat in silence until the tea was gone. At last she sighed and set down her cup. She was not young anymore—none of them were—but in this moment she looked old indeed.

“I have heard a lot of things, many of them from your distraught house elf, but perhaps you’d better tell me everything first-hand.”

He could see that he wasn’t getting out of it. “Very well.”

Minerva procured biscuits from somewhere within her robes and conjured up a second pot of tea. She was becoming a regular Albus—blessedly, however, Severus knew that no matter how many sweets she hid up her sleeves he would never have to wonder how she was plotting to use Potter’s latest misadventure to draw him deeper into the fold.

She became deeply contemplative when Severus at last told her about the Dementors and Potter’s Legilimency. “It is truly a shame the boy won’t return to Hogwarts,” she said finally.

“You and every wizard of note in Britain—and many outside—are thinking the same thing.” He pushed a copy of the Daily Prophet over to her.

Speculation abounded in the rag as usual, but they had gotten some of the key facts right: Severus had fallen prey to a Dementor’s Kiss and Potter had pulled him back from the brink of ruin. How or why hardly mattered to those who cared. It was a flagrant display of power which would only be emphasized by his test results. Severus had found the papers among his things from the hospital and had been keeping them under the sofa he slept on. Head Auror Robards hadn’t waited long before he owled to ask for them.

“We all wonder how best Harry could serve us,” Minerva agreed with a sigh. “I suppose the old guard is a selfish lot.”

“Just like those who came before us,” said Severus. “And those who will come after. People like him will always struggle not to end up pawns in one way or another. Even I am not without motive. But he has grown into a strong-minded young man who’ll go where he wants, and damn anyone who gets in his way.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “You’re right, of course. I don’t know if I can say what your motive is, though, Severus. Not his power or fame, surely.”

“What else does the boy have to give aplenty?” Severus poured himself another cup of tea to avoid her penetrative gaze.

He’d known from the beginning that Potter had come to him for a reason and that reason would eventually make itself known. He understood Potter’s character just as Albus did. He’d held it in his mind for ten years now, encased in a fragile bulb deep within the maze where the Dark Lord would never find it.

“Love,” said Minerva eventually.

He stayed on Potter’s sofa for two regrettable nights while Weasley and Granger slept in the guest bedroom. The three of them took turns keeping watch, although nothing more threatening than the occasional paparazzi arose. Severus could admit he found it amusing when Granger dispersed them with hexes, but it was the only thing bearable about the situation. Potter would still hardly touch him, though he could feel his longing pulsating through the bond. He couldn’t be sure of the reason—disgust, or fear. Perhaps this was the end.

On the third day Severus returned to Hogwarts. He needed distance. They both did. The wounds might heal, but not if they stayed in this holding pattern.

“I need to return to my classes,” he told Potter. “Merlin knows what they’re teaching the students in my absence.”

Potter made it clear he saw through Severus’s transparent excuse—and how could he not? They were practically the same person now—but he nodded anyway.

“I’ll come by in a few days,” he said.

Severus agreed, coward that he was. It would be better for Potter to be apart from him for longer, to regain his equilibrium in the real world. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

He felt ungrateful for even considering sending the boy away, telling him not to come by anymore. No doubt Potter had carried out his act of salvation without thought, as usual, but the weight of it was heavy on Severus’s mind. He owed Potter. He had no way to repay that debt.

Hogwarts was abuzz with the energy of the new year. Severus’s convalescence had been brief and he felt like a new man, or perhaps the same man but more of himself than before. He was reborn and it frightened him. He found himself melancholy at the strangest moments of the day—and most disturbingly, he couldn’t tell if it was his emotion or Potter’s.

His mind had been a fortress. Every memory had its place, every secret desire and shame was packed into the foundation of the walls. He had strived to be the master of himself. Perhaps he had failed in many ways, but the failures had been his to own. Now he was laid bare. Potter had left a wreckage in his wake.

He’d not been courageous enough to take stock yet, but he knew that the disarray of his mind could easily drive him to madness if he wasn’t careful.

The morning of the day that he had no Potions classes to teach, Severus attended breakfast in the Great Hall. A barn owl delivered the Daily Prophet into his porridge with particular vigour. Severus nearly spit out his tea when he read the headline.

_Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived: Gay?_

That heavy word, followed by a tremulous question mark. He shook the paper out immediately.

 _Harry Potter gives a soul-baring interview about his journey of self-discovery in an interview with our own Polly Prewett,_ the log-line read, practically salivary.

Suddenly ill, he pushed away his breakfast and stood. Murmurs rose around him. He felt exposed, like it was his secret plastered over the front page for the world to see, even thought that was ridiculous. He hurried through the corridors to the privacy of his rooms, eager to be alone where he could give nothing away.

A moment after he'd shut the door to his room the Floo sputtered and came to life. The green fire spat Potter out onto the antique carpet in an expulsion of soot.

"Severus," Potter began, picking himself up and dusting off his Muggle jeans.

"Don't _'Severus'_ me!" He turned on Potter and brandished the paper. "Did you think at all before going to the papers? What are the implications to your career? That Quidditch team isn't going to want a _queer_ in their ranks—"

"I came out to the team already and they don't care, thanks very much," Potter said loudly, hurt flashing in his eyes. "I thought you'd be supportive."

“Supportive?” Severus couldn’t think. “Everyone with two brain cells to rub together will know the nature of our Patronage.”

"Oh, so it's about your reputation?" Potter took a step toward him and he stepped back, which seemed to infuriate the boy. "What about me? What I choose?"

"Bollocks to my reputation," Severus snarled. "You think I give a toss what people think of me anymore? It's about your ridiculous optimism and self-centredness which makes you unable to see the hardship you're causing for yourself. We don’t live in some dizzy utopia—you may have vanquished the Dark Lord, but prejudice lingers. People like your precious Gryffindor and Ravenclaw friends. Muggle-borns like Finch-Fletcheley. This sort of public gesture will not be welcomed with open arms. Just like Granger's ridiculous crusade for house elf liberation, or your insistence on rehabilitating every ex-Death Eater you come in contact with."

Potter had backed him into a wall, and now he braced one hand bedside Severus's head and leaned in.

"Not every one," he said. "Just the ones who deserve it. And it wasn't misguided, in spite of what you might think. I did it because I want to be free. I'm done with acting out what people expect of me, or want from me. I'm ready to take what _I_ want, and part of that is telling everyone the truth. And part of it is you."

The bond flared bright between them, white hot. Severus tried to think rationally. "It's what you want now, but when the contract is over you will undoubtedly find someone more appropriate."

"I'm not interested in 'appropriate'," Harry said bluntly. "I came after you in the maze because I—"

"Don't say it!" Severus hissed.

"Fine! But you _will_ come with me to the wedding. You may not be my ‘beau’ or whatever you want to call it, but we are sleeping together. And I will say it one day because it's true."

He stepped back.

"Fine," Severus said, smoothing the front of his robes.

“The Weasleys are having a party for me at the Flamel Hall," Potter said.

"I won't parade you around on my arm, if that's what you're asking." Severus sat down on the sofa, his legs giving out shamefully.

"No, I didn't think you would." Potter smiled briefly, and he looked happy. Severus quelled the beating of his heart. "But I hope you’ll to be waiting for me to Floo in tonight when I finally get tired of being congratulated on my 'bravery' so that I can go to bed with you."

"Yes," said Severus. "I will."

"Good." Potter took a handful of Floo powder from the bowl on the mantle. "See you tonight, then."

In actuality it was later than he promised when Potter finally returned. Severus had fallen asleep on the sofa as he was considering whether or not to go to bed. He woke startled from a dream when the Floo roared to life, and for a moment he fumbled for his wand, fearful. But it was only Potter tumbling out ungracefully, catching himself on the nearby armchair. He was pink-cheeked and bright-eyed.

“Severus,” he said brightly.

“Harry,” Severus returned.

“Merlin, you’ve finally learned my name.” He grinned. “You were asleep. Your hair’s all—”

He made a gesture and Severus smoothed his hair down automatically. Potter laughed.

“Was it everything you hoped?” he asked, aiming for snide but falling somewhere nearer to honest.

“Well, Arthur invited a whole truckload of people from the Ministry and some of them asked some frankly invasive questions about my sex life, and I had to not-so-gently tell them that they could stuff it.” Potter unlaced his boots to leave them by the fireside. “Charlie was there, which was nice, but he also was overly interested in who I might be dating or wanting to date. For that matter, so was Molly. And Gin ignored me for most of the party, though I can’t blame her.”

“Reality disappoints,” Severus said blandly.

Potter looked up, his gaze intent. “No, it really doesn’t.”

Severus stood and put his book back on the shelf, and Potter followed him as he headed down the short corridor to his bedroom, unbuttoning his formal robes as he went.

“You know, throughout school I didn’t ever think about the fact that you lived here just like we did,” Potter was saying. “This is much nicer than the dorms, though. It suits you.”

“I did so long for your approval on the matter,” Severus said dryly.

“I mean… it’s comfortable and homey.” Potter looked around at his room. “I’m glad you have a place like this.”

“If you’re quite finished,” Severus prompted, turning down the sheets. He shrugged off his own robes and went to hang them in the closet. When he turned back Potter was already naked and between the sheets.

“Yeah, I’m done,” he said.

Severus took a moment to admire him, young and lithe, with none of the scars of age—but those would come, he knew. Time would take its toll on Harry, unrelenting. Life would be full of disappointments and failures, no matter how charmed was the Boy Who Lived. What could Severus do but take what was given and be thankful?

He slid in next to Harry, already reaching for him. Harry reached back and everything else faded away.


End file.
